TAMPA, Fla. _ The hearing on whether to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was to start at noon.
But Judge George Greer, always punctual, wasn't there. Hours before, he and his wife had packed up their Yorkie, Mr. Bailey, and gotten on an airplane. The Pinellas County sheriff was that worried about Greer's safety.
Schiavo, 41, had been in a vegetative state for 15 years.
Her husband felt it was time to let her go. Her parents and siblings thought she was still in there.
It fell to Greer to decide whether she lived or died.
After his plane landed somewhere in Florida (he still won't say where), he got in a car wearing a bulletproof vest. He pulled out his cell phone, dialing into the hearing at the old courthouse in Clearwater. It was March 18, 2005.
He was about to deliver his final say in one of the most widely disputed end-of-life cases in history.
Greer knew how he was going to rule. That wasn't the hard part.
