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Liver Transplant Recipient Admits To Third DUI
Atchison Abuzz About Man's Guilty Plea After Transplants
POSTED: 6:54 pm CST March 5,
2008
UPDATED: 8:00 am CST March 6,
2008
ATCHISON, Kan. -- A small town was abuzz on Wednesday after a man who had undergone two liver transplants pleaded guilty to his third DUI in five years.Community members were upset about what they perceived as a lack of responsibility by Robert Shumaker.“Everybody does deserve a second chance, but if he’s got three DUIs and is abusing alcohol with a liver transplant, I don’t see how he has a chance at the liver that he’s got ever holding together,” said Raymond McCaully Sr., of Leavenworth, Kan.On Nov. 21, Atchison police found Shumaker, 47, parked in his car on the outside of town, they said. He was slumped over and incoherent and his blood-alcohol level was five times the legal limit, police said.
Shumaker's liver failure was because he suffered from hepatitis, not because of alcohol use, Shumaker's mother said. His first transplant didn't take, so he needed the second one, she said.Shumaker wasn't at his home in nearby Cummings, Kan., and couldn't be reached for comment.“You’ve got somebody like him who doesn’t (really care) about anybody, not even himself. Look at his body. Look how he’s abuse himself, and then we’re going to give him a liver. No. I don’t think so," said Tammy Schuler, of Atchison, Kan.He is ill and has a caretaker because of his liver problems, his mother said.No law prevents people who abuse alcohol from receiving liver transplants, but some hospitals require patients to demonstrate a period of sobriety, sometimes from six to 12 months.Shumaker will be sentenced in a couple of weeks and could spend from 90 days to a year in jail.
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