‘He woke up’: Thousands fleeing organ-donation programs after man prepped while ALIVE!
The horrific situation happened a few years ago, but the tale about a man who was being prepped for organ donation while alive has gotten much attention lately because of an investigation into the situation.
And it’s caused many people to drop out of the organ donation plans to which they had subscribed.
It was legacy wire service reports at the AP that warned of a “spike” in people revoking organ donor plans.
It’s because, the report said, their confidence was “shaken by reports that organs were nearly retrieved from a Kentucky man mistakenly declared dead.”
The report noted that it happened in 2021 and the man remains alive today. It was exposed during a recent congressional hearing on the topic.
“The federal agency that regulates the U.S. transplant system is investigating, and the Kentucky attorney general’s office said it is ‘reviewing the facts to identify an appropriate response,'” the report said.
It is at PJMedia where there is an explanation of why people are running scared from the idea.
That report identified the man as Anthony Hoover, 33, who “woke up in a Kentucky hospital with medical personnel shaving his chest, bathing his body, and talking about harvesting his organs.”
He had been hospitalized with an overdose and doctors apparently claimed he was unresponsive, “lacked reflexes” “had “emptiness in his eyes” and was “brain dead.”
He was two hours into a five-hour procedure to remove organs when a staff member came out to talk to the family with what has to be the stunner of the year: “He’s not ready. He woke up.”
The report noted that those who formerly worked at the “organ procurement organization” said someone who was making eye contact and shaking his head “no” never should have been near the operating room.
But Dorrie Dils, president of thte Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, pointed out that the process is based on the trust of the public. And once lost, it can take “years” to restore, she said.
The case came to the public’s attention through an investigation in Congress, and the result has been “thousands” of people leaving the programs.
Donate Life America, for example, has had 170 people per day leaving the registry.
The report noted that while doing a heart catheterization, the patient had “purposeful movement to pain” and he was “thrashing around.”
A cardiologist suggested, “I would most certainly call this purposeful movement, and they should not have said that patient was not going to have a meaningful recovery with these reflexes.”
In fact, the report said, he was given a paralytic and sedated further.
What appears to be at issue is how doctors make a determination that a patient is dead.
Daniel Sulmasy, of Georgetown Hospital, said the key is that they do “the right tests and doing them well.”
The case has had long shadows. In France, the government presumes donation consent, but recently up to 1,000 people per day have joined a registry of those objecting.
The trend could have “catastrophic consequences” for those needing transplants, said Regis Bronchard, of the French Biomedicine Agency.