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round of legal battles, poison pill or not.
    Even with this concession, the legislative struggle was not over. As the legislature was waging battle in debate, Representative Stargel’s aides would call our office often, saying that some of the opposing representatives and senators were reading from a list of talking points that Stargel’s aides did not believe were true. Each time they’d call, our attorneys would rush to pull together the accurate data and then fax the facts to Representative Stargel’s office for him and other sympathetic representatives and senators to use to counter the misleading statements being made about Terri on the floor.
    THE FINAL PUSH
    While we worked to stamp out those fires, on Monday afternoon Michael’s attorney, George Felos, called a press conference and declared that he would fight the proposed legislation as unconstitutional. Further, he threatened to sue any doctor who reinserted the feeding tube should the governor sign the bill.
    When we heard about the press conference, our office jumped on the phone again to Tallahassee. We informed Representative Stargel about the press conference and that the joint committee (where the bill had now gone to resolve the differences in the house and senate versions) had to insert an immunity clause for the doctors. Otherwise, Terri might die despite passage of the legislation and an order by the governor.
    At the same time that the bill was making its way through the legislature, our office had also begun a direct dialogue with the governor’s office regarding how the measures permitted in the bill would be carried out. The new bill, as passed by the senate, gave the governor a onetime option to stay a judicial order and reinsert the feeding tube for a person in Terri’s situation. This would give his office time to undertake a review of the circumstances. Our office, coordinating with the governor’s legal counsel, hammered out how any order Governor Bush might sign would be carried out.
    When it appeared that the redrafted bill would pass in both houses, our office began to look for the fastest way to rush the new law and a copy of the governor’s order to the hospice facility immediately after the governor signed it. We called the governor’s office and requested that as soon as the law passed, we would need a copy of the law and of the governor’s order faxed to our office without delay. They agreed to help. Each time we spoke, the governor’s legal team would ask how Terri was doing. We realized that they were genuinely concerned for her life.
    As Day Five faded into evening, we called the county sheriff’s office to request that their people be placed on standby. We politely asked for their help to serve the governor’s order on the hospice as soon as it was signed and delivered. A few minutes later, a call came from the sheriff’s office to inform us that they couldn’t guarantee immediate service of the governor’s order on the hospice.
    That was a surprise. We asked (naively, perhaps) if the sheriff’s office was at all familiar with the case and with the fact that a woman’s life was hanging in the balance. The response we received continued to be both evasive and noncommittal regarding any assistance with speeding up the notification process.
    We weren’t about to let this lack of responsiveness deprive Terri of a chance to live. Within minutes we were back on the phone with the governor’s office. We explained the potential problem we might face with the county sheriff’s office. Without their willingness to guarantee immediate service of the governor’s order, we needed some help from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). We asked if there was any way the governor could prearrange for a state trooper in the FDLE division in Pinellas County to serve his order on the hospice.
    Once again, we found a desire to help at the highest levels.