Brain Dead Man Wakes Up Just Before Organs Get Harvested
A whistleblower is speaking out over an October 2021 incident that saw a Kentucky man, who had officially been declared brain dead, wake up during a scheduled surgery intended to harvest his organs for donations. According to Nyckoletta Martin, a former organ preservationist at Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA), the medical personnel on-site were still instructed to attempt the organ harvesting, despite Hoover showing signs of life while he was being wheeled into the operating room.
Three years after that horrifying incident, Martin detailed the bizarre case in a letter to the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in the hopes of drawing attention to America’s organ procurement and transplantation system.
The Incident
The patient, 36-year-old Anthony Thomas ‘TJ’ Hoover II, had been rushed to Baptist Health Hospital in Richmond, Kentucky, following a drug overdose where he suffered cardiac arrest. One day later, Hoover’s family made the decision to remove him from life support after doctors declared the Kentucky man brain dead. According to Hoover’s sister, Donna Rhorer, doctors informed the family that her brother had “no reflexes” and that there were signs of “no brain activity, no brain waves,” despite Rhorer observing her brother opening his eyes.
In what is considered to be standard operating procedure, doctors then began testing Hoover’s vital organs, attempting to determine which of the brain dead man’s organs were viable for donation. One of those key tests for organ harvesting was a cardiac catheterization to his heart, during which Hoover woke up before allegedly being sedated. According to Martin, doctors reportedly failed to notify the family about Hoover waking up.
Signs Of Life
However, despite being continuously declared a brain dead man, Hoover still displayed signs of life as KODA employee Natasha Miller wheeled him into the operating room. While recalling the October 2021 incident, Miller described in detail the moment that Hoover surprisingly came back to life, catching the staff off guard. “He was moving around, kind of thrashing,” Miller revealed. “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.”
Once the medical personnel observed Hoover making a dramatic return to life, Miller says that everyone inside the operating room refused to continue the organ harvesting procedure on a man who they were assured to be brain dead. After it became obvious that the staff would take no part in the harvesting, there was a moment of contention between a KODA supervisor and the team’s coordinator.
Some Still Wanted To Go On
“So the coordinator calls the supervisor at the time. And she was saying that he was telling her that she needed to ‘find another doctor to do it,’ Miller recalls. “That we were going to do this case. She needs to find someone else. And she’s like, ‘There is no one else.’ She’s crying, the coordinator, because she’s getting yelled at.”
Following the tense moments in the wake of the discovery, the organ harvesting was eventually called off and Hoover began his long road to recovery. But the incident caused many of the medical personnel involved in the case to resign from their positions, including both Martin and Miller, who each claim that KODA downplayed the incident. Martin says that Hoover’s ordeal is everyone’s “worst nightmare,” describing the process of a team of doctors removing your organs despite still being alive as “horrifying.”
Although he was declared a brain dead man in 2021, Hoover continues to recover from his near-fatal drug overdose, with Rhorer acting as his legal guardian. Rhorer says that her brother currently faces a daily struggle dealing with ongoing problems with his speech, memory, and movement. As of October 2024, there has not been an official ruling regarding Hoover’s case, though an investigation by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration is still ongoing.
Source: NPR
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