A man declared dead in a Kentucky hospital was wheeled into the operating room for organ donation where it became apparent to everyone in the room that he was alive with "tears coming down" this face.
Anthony Thomas "TJ" Hoover II, 36, was taken to the hospital following a drug overdose, where doctors told family members Hoover was brain dead. His sister, Donna Rhorer, told NPR she saw Hoover open his eyes and look around as his hospital bed was wheeled out of intensive care.
"It was like it was his way of letting us know, you know, 'Hey, I'm still here,'" she told the outlet. However, Rhorer was told that she observed a common reflex.
The incident came to light after an organ preservationist, Nyckoletta Martin, quit her job and shared the details of the disturbing experience in a congressional letter.
Martin was on-call the day of the procedure, and although she was not assigned to the operation, she familiarized herself with the case notes, which contained a red flag. "The donor had woken up during his procedure that morning for a cardiac catheterization. And he was thrashing around on the table," Martin told NPR.
Doctors allegedly sedated Hoover and plans to retrieve his organs did not change.
Natasha Miller, another organ preservationist, was in the operating room. She told NPR, "He was moving around — kind of thrashing. Like, moving, thrashing around on the bed, and then when we went over there, you could see he had tears coming down. He was crying visibly."
"The procuring surgeon, he was like, 'I'm out of it, I don't want to have anything to do with it,'" Miller said as she described the "very chaotic" scene.
Miller allegedly overheard the case coordinator's call with her supervisor at Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA). "She was saying that he was telling her that she needed to 'find another doctor to do it' – that, 'We were going to do this case. She needs to find someone else. And she's like, 'There is no one else,'" Miller told the outlet. "She's crying — the coordinator — because she's getting yelled at."
Julie Bergin, president and chief operating officer of Network for Hope, which KODA became part of in a merger, told NPR, in a statement that "this case has not been accurately represented." Bergin added, "No one at KODA has ever been pressured to collect organs from any living patient. KODA does not recover organs from living patients."
The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations wrote an open letter expressing concerns that misinformation is causing a decline in organ donation. With over 100,000 people waiting for an organ transplant, medical professionals hope to see the trend reversed.
As for Hoover, his sister is now his legal guardian. "I do feel angry. I feel betrayed by the fact that the people that were telling us he was brain dead and then he wakes up," Rhorer told NPR.
Rhorer continued, "They are trying to play God. They're almost, you know, picking and choosing — they're going to take this person to save these people. And you kind of lose your faith in humanity a little bit."
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