Recently, former world champion boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho passed away after he was shot outside of a nightclub in Puerto Rico in what is believed to be a drug-related incident. There is an estate planning lesson to be learned from his death. However, it is a lesson that most people should have learned a few years ago when Terry Schiavo was in the news.
Not long after Camacho was shot, doctors declared him brain dead and gave him no hope of ever recovering. If Camacho had a Living Will, doctors would have looked at it to determine whether the former boxer should have been removed from life support or not. Bizarrely, given the inherent and obvious dangers of his profession, Camacho did not have a Living Will or any other type of Advanced Medical Directive. His family had to decide what to do, and they did not all agree.
Please take this as another opportunity to learn your lesson. Do not leave these important decisions up to your family to argue over. If you are ever in the situation where you need a Living Will, your family will have plenty of other things on their minds. They do not need the pain of this decision. Get a Living Will now.
Stephen A. Mendel, Estate Planning Attorney
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