I posted this story on another thread, but I think it fits better here. Not an answer to the original question, but one more specific story about another who died. Of course the Witness' response is no one knows if they would have died even if given blood.
At the district convention this past summer, a brother from my old congregation died because of refusing blood. He'd had a colonoscopy a couple of days prior to the convention, and Friday afternoon, while helping with the cleaning, he had to be rushed to the emergency room.
He was bleeding internally, evidently from a problem from the colonoscopy, and he refused transfusions. He went into a coma and died early Saturday morning. He had just turned 50.
In most of the cases involving children and blood that I was a part of as an elder in the 70s - 90s, the Society told the parents to let the state get a court order and give the child blood. I remember being rather shocked when Fred Rusk, who was the WTS's main blood guy for years, essentially told me that over the phone when we were dealing with a case. That's not a direct quote, but the gist of the conversation.
S4