Michael Schiavo's side of the story

Matt Lauer • Profile

CLEARWATER, FLA. - Michael Schiavo, the man who was praised by some and vilified by others for fighting to remove his wife Terri’s feeding tube, has decided to tell his side of the story.

“For 15 years, people had a lot to say that didn’t even know me. Now it’s my turn to talk,” he now says.

Schiavo invited us to his home in Clearwater, Florida to talk about the bitter battle that divided two families and gained the attention of the pope, the president and Congress. It’s all in his new book “Terri the Truth.”

Matt Lauer:  I guess you could’ve written a book to honor Terri. After reading it, it’s not really the book you wrote. This is a book that  in some ways settles some scores, doesn’t it?

Michael Schiavo: Oh yes, it does.

Lauer: You did think about writing that honoring Terri book?

Michael Schiavo: Oh yes, many times. This book does honor Terri in a way. It sets her free. It tells the truth.

Before Terri Schiavo became a symbol— the young woman in the hospital bed at the center of an acrimonious fight between her husband and family— she was Theresa Marie Schindler, a shy overweight girl growing up in Pennsylvania. She and Michael met as college students in 1983.

Lauer: What do you remember about your first meeting?

Schiavo: I remember that look, that face, that laugh. I was just drawn into that. She just had a sweetness about her.

Lauer: You were her first date.

Schiavo: Uh-huh.

Lauer: You were her first kiss.

Schiavo: Uh-huh.

Lauer: How would you describe her personality back then?

Schiavo: She was just this person you just wanna hold and grab and just hold onto. You just wanted to bring her in. She was just a sweet, loving girl.

Michael and Terri got married a year after they met. By this time, Terri, the once overweight teen, had worked hard to get her weight down and was reveling in her new appearance.

Schiavo: Now she was able to be the person she wanted to be. And it made me happy to see that.

The newlyweds decided to leave the cold Northeast and move to Terri’s parents’ condo in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Lauer: What was your relationship with her parents at that point?

Schiavo: My relationship was very good with them.

Lauer: You call them “mom and dad”?

Schiavo: “Mom and dad” from the time I got engaged, actually probably a couple months before that. I called them “mom and dad.”

Lauer: So it wasn’t “Robert” or “Mary” or “Mr. and Mrs. Schindler”? It was “mom and dad.”

Schiavo: “Mom and dad.”

Lauer: And they treated you like…

Schiavo: A son.

But six years into his marriage, everything would change between Michael and his in-laws because of what happened in the early hours of a February morning.

Lauer: Take me back to the night that Terri collapsed. Talk me through that early morning.

Schiavo: I got undressed and slipped into bed.  Terri woke up and she gave me a little kiss on the cheek.  She said, “Goodnight.  I love you.”  And we both went back to sleep.  And somewhere around 5 a.m., I heard a thud, a loud bang.

I looked over and I noticed Terri wasn’t in bed.  So, I ran out in the hall and there was Terri laying on the ground.

Lauer: What’d you say to her?  What were you—

Schiavo: “Terri what’s wrong?  Wake up.  Terri.  Tell me something.  Talk to me.  What’s wrong?  What’s wrong?”  And right there she just made this noise and no response since then.  I laid her down and immediately ran over and called 911.

Terri Schiavo’s heart had stopped, apparently from a potassium imbalance doctors at the time suspected was caused by bulimia.  The lack of oxygen to her brain caused severe brain damage.

Lauer: You said to me, “somewhere around 5 a.m. I heard a thud and immediately called 911.” You know that the accusation has been leveled was that you waited.

Schiavo: No.

Lauer: That you waited a long time, according to some people, to pick up the phone and call the help she desperately needed.  How do you respond to that?

Schiavo: They’re wrong.  I heard the thud.  Ran to Terri.  Called—after that little gasp, I mean, it was within a minute I was on the phone with 911.  They can think whatever. I didn’t wear a watch that day, Matt. My interest was not in the time.

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Lauer: The reason it’s so important to their side, Michael, is that they paint a different picture of your relationship with Terri and your marriage prior to her collapse on February 25th.  They say this wasn’t such a happy marriage, that there were problems.  And they allege, I think, that perhaps you waited to call 911 because you didn’t want her to get the help—

Schiavo: That’s absurd.  Terri and I had a perfect marriage.  Matt, Terri and I were trying to get pregnant.  Now, tell me why would she have wanted to bring my child into this world if she wanted to divorce me? 

For the next two years, Michael says he tried to get Terri whatever medical care she needed, even taking her to California for experimental treatment.

He made a career change, leaving the restaurant business to become an emergency medical technician to learn how to better take care of his wife.

Schiavo: I stuck by Terri’s side. I took care of her.

And during that time, he says he and the Schindlers had no problems. They remained close, united in their concern for Terri’s care.

But according to Michael, money would change everything. In November  1992, Michael sued Terri’s physician, accusing him of failing to diagnosis bulimia while treating Terri for fertility problems prior to her collapse at 26.

Michael says the jury award, about $750,000 dollars in Terri’s name, is what set the Schindler-Schiavo battle in motion— starting with a fight with Terri’s father in her hospital room on February 14, 1993.

Lauer: So, you say Robert Schindler walked up to you on that Valentine’s Day and says to you, “When am I going to get my money?”

Schiavo: That’s when the money was coming down.  And then he asked me, “How much am I going to get?” I said to him, “I’m giving it all to Terri.” And then with some anger in his voice, he pointed at Terri and said, “Well, how much is she going to give me?”

“She’s not going to give you anything.  The money is in trust with a guardian for her care.”  So, he then he starts getting angry.  And says he’s going to take over the guardianship.  He’s going to get a lawyer. I’m like, “Well, if that’s what you need to do, go do it.” 

And Mrs. Schindler jumps in front.  “You know, he’s right.  This is our daughter.  We deserve money.”

Lauer: Talk about two sides to every story.  You know that the Schindlers basically allege the same thing with you.  They allege that it was only after the malpractice suit was settled and the money was placed in trust for Terri that you began the process of trying to get the feeding tube pulled from Terri.  Because then you stood to inherit that money.

Schiavo: Matt, we offered them three times in writing, in the media, that we would give every cent of that money to charity in Terri’s name. The Schindlers were the ones that refused that.  They didn’t want it to happen.

And as this family split became more bitter, the Schindlers would put Michael’s every move under a microscope, even intimating that he may have been the cause of Terri’s collapse.

Lauer: Bobby Schindler on “Larry King Live” one night says the following, “We have collected or gathered a tremendous amount of evidence that possibly suggests something violent happened to my sister the night she collapsed.  And it could’ve been or could be that Michael doesn’t want Terri to ever speak again.  Because if she did, she could shed some light on what happened the night she collapsed.”

Schiavo: Bobby has no proof, he has offered no proof to this. Where is this evidence?  Cause they had none.

In fact, the autopsy report released last June backs up what Michael says, finding no signs of strangulation or abuse. And Michael points out that he never heard those accusations until Terri’s story made front page news.

Schiavo: If they knew this, why did my mother-in-law, during the malpractice trials, state that I was the best son-in-law? But then in a few years later, it’s something different.

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