The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is investigating organ donation practices after a Kentucky organization was about to begin harvesting organs from someone alive.
Kentucky-based not-for-profit Network for Hope, merged with Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA), wheeled TJ Hoover, who was declared brain-dead, into surgery for organ harvesting.
Hoover was declared brain dead after suffering an overdose in October 2021.
Disturbing, his sister Donna Rhorer reports that his eyes were open and tracking movement during his honor walk (a custom in which family members gather to say goodbye before organ donation surgery).
Nevertheless, he was wheeled away, but the surgeon returned 45 minutes later: “I stopped it, he’s not ready, he woke up”, she said.
Natasha Miller, who worked as a surgical preservationist on Hoover’s case for KODA, said he was thrashing around during the procedure. She is no longer with KODA, which pushed the surgeon to proceed.
“I was really surprised that that morning he had been taken to the cardiac cath lab, he was paralyzed and sedated, and moved on with the OR. The hospital staff said they were incredibly alarmed, calling it euthanasia,” Martin said. “The cardiologist said he didn’t know why TJ was given a poor prognosis, he said it didn’t look like it was brain dead”, reports another employee who resigned from KODA almost immediately after.
However, the majority of donations appear to come from patients who went through cardiac death rather than brain death — this information problematizes her statement, and complicates the
Hoover now suffers from PTSD.
Spasms, gases or sighs often are frightening remnants of life in someone who has gone through brain death or cardiac death — thrashing, however, is extreme.
The organization has given little public detail on what happened, likely because medical organizations are highly limited in their defense by HIPAA laws.
