Chest tattoo spells out woman’s medical wishes

DECORAH, IA - Mary Wohlford has made it perfectly clear what her final wishes are: it’s written in ink — on her chest.

Wohlford, 80, has a living will hanging on the side of her refrigerator.

She also has told family members of her wishes should she become incapacitated.

Now she hopes she has made it perfectly clear.

Wohlford, a retired nurse and great-grandmother, had the words "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" tattooed on her chest in February.

"People might think I’m crazy, but that’s OK," she said.

"Sometimes the nuttiest ideas are the most advanced."

But Wohlford’s decision to have her final wishes imprinted on her chest have raised some legal issues.

Some medical and legal experts doubt that Wohlford’s tattoo would be binding in the emergency room or in court.

But they give her credit for originality.

"I’ll be darned," said Bob Cowie, a Decorah lawyer and chairman of the Iowa Bar Association’s probate and trust law section.

"There are easier ways to do it than that," said Cowie, who suggested people sign a living will or authorize a medical power of attorney.

Her decision to get the tattoo was the result of what she saw during her 30 years in nursing and during the Terri Schiavo controversy last year.

If family members can’t find her living will or can’t make the decision to end life-sustaining procedures, her doctors will know her wishes by reading the words that are tattooed on her chest.

Wohlford, who is widowed, has eight daughters, 17 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

She mows her own yard and cleans her own swimming pool.

"She’s always been a maverick," said her daughter, Mary Pat Wohlford-Wessels, assistant dean of the medical school at Des Moines University.

Wohlford-Wessels said she failed to talk her mom out of getting the tattoo.

"She said, ‘Remember all those times when you were a teenager, and I said don’t do this, that or the other thing?

Purtle said Iowa law defines when caregivers are permitted to end life-sustaining measures.

William Bump, a Stuart lawyer who has expertise in living wills and estate planning, said people need more than a tattoo to make their final wishes known.