I've read a few ER room stories on quora where trauma surgeons would dictate their real life accounts.
One of them said about a accident victim who was very much alive , conscious and talkative. Upon operating the surgeon's team found that the hepatic vein has ruptured from vena cava behind the liver. So the team decided that nothing could be done to repair that damage and save the patient's life. They stopped the life support and slowly the patient died on the table.
Full account of the incident here
Reading through the comments I found this passage : You remember Professor Asrat used to say that injuries to the vena cava behind the liver are when the surgeon sees God? He used to say things like that that I didn’t understand. I understand now.’”
What I fail to understand is why was this situation deemed untreatable? Especially when someone is very much alive.
Why would one not try to treat it anyway regardless of success rate when the other option is definitely death of the patient?
Several cases which are very likely to be fatal (cancer , HIV , ebola ) etc are treated regardless of the final outcome so what went wrong in this case?