Terry Schiavo's brother helps fight custody battle

Rochester, N.Y., Dec 16, 2009 / 16:19 pm

Bobby Schindler, the brother of the late Terry Schiavo, has joined the fight to help a Corning, New York woman regain custody of her husband, according the Corning Leader.

“We're trying to support her efforts to bring him home,” said Schindler on Tuesday.

Sara Harvey is attempting to regain custody of her husband Gary, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 2006, when he fell down a flight of stairs. Harvey lost custody of her husband to Chemung County in February of 2007 after a judge ruled that she ignored medical advice and was not fit to care for him. Harvey was also accused of abusing her husband by a county attorney's office, but she denies the allegations.

Rather, Harvey claims that the county is trying to kill Gary, since it is requesting to have his feeding tube removed in May. Though the county has since withdrawn its request to remove the feeding tube, it still maintains a do-not-resuscitate order for Harvey's husband and has not relinquished custody.

Harvey is only allowed supervised visits with her husband. “I went through hell, and I'm still going though hell,” she said on Tuesday. “The government owns my husband.”

“It's horrible how they are treating this woman,” Schindler told the Corning Leader in defense of Harvey. Schindler's sister, Terri Schiavo who was in a persistent vegetative state, died in 2005 after her feeding tube was removed by a court order. “There are animals that got better treatment than my sister,” said Schindler. “All life is really sacred.”

To learn more about Bobby Schindler's efforts, visit, http://www.terrisfight.org.