What happened to George Pickering, the man who held doctors hostage to save his son’s life?

How far would you go to save your child’s life? In 2015, George Pickering was faced with that question when a Texas hospital declared his son “brain dead.” Rather than allow healthcare providers to remove his son from life support, Pickering pulled a gun instead.

According to The Washington Post, George Pickering III, Pickering’s son, had a history of seizures and was admitted to the Tomball Regional Medical Center after a stroke. Pickering III was declared “brain dead,” and an order was given to a “terminal wean” the 27-year-old man off life support. To stop it from happening, however, Pickering III’s father pulled a handgun at his son’s bedside and said, “I’ll kill all of you. You don’t think that’s the only weapon I got” (via WaPo).

Pickering, who was 59 at the time, later said he knew the hospital’s prognosis about his son was wrong, based on fatherly intuition, and despite the risk, he would not let his son die.

Pickering was disarmed

Before long, hospital staff called the police to report an armed man on the premises, and though George Pickering was quickly disarmed, he refused to surrender, causing an hours-long standoff at the facility. No shots were fired, but the decision to wean Pickering’s son off life support was never carried out. Eventually, Pickering gave up. According to the Houston Chronicle, Pickering told the police he had been recently diagnosed with an undisclosed illness and spent time in the Tomball Regional Medical Center before he was taken to jail.

Referring to the incident, Tomball police head of criminal investigations, Gary Hammond said:

“[Pickering] was very distraught. As you well know, people handle stress differently. You never can say what it will take to hit such a serious trigger mechanism … [PIckering] was wanting the best and for the doctors and nurses to pay more attention.”

via Houston Chronicle

Pickering spent 11 months in jail

Once in custody, George Pickering — who later admitted he was drunk the day he brought a gun to his son’s bedside — was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. One charge was dismissed, and Pickering spent 11 months in jail for the incident, including credit for jail time served, Click2Houston.com reported. As Pickering’s intuition told him, his son woke up and recovered.

Referring to what his father did, Pickering III later said, “There was a law broken, but it was broken for all the right reasons. I’m here now because of it. It was love” (via WaPo).