Although people often joke about someone being “braindead,” the reality is no laughing matter. Brain Death is described as the total and irreversible loss of all brain function and the circumstance under which the donation of vital organs most commonly takes place. Another, more detailed definition is:
“There is only one kind of death — when one is dead, one is dead — but death can be determined in the two different ways described in the law. A braindead individual who is warm and pink with heart beating and lungs ventilating is just as dead, legally, as an individual whose body has turned cold after the heart has permanently stopped beating.”