Case of Anthony Thomas ‘TJ’ Hoover II is under investigation by state and federal government officials

A man who had gone into cardiac arrest and been declared brain dead woke up as surgeons in his home state of Kentucky were in the middle of harvesting his organs for donation, his family has told media outlets.

As reported Thursday by both National Public Radio and the Kentucky news station WKYT, the case of Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II is under investigation by state and federal government officials. Officials within the US’s organ-procurement system insist there are safeguards in place to prevent such episodes, though his family told the outlets their experience highlights a need for at least some reform.

…

WKYT reported that Rhorer only learned the full details of her brother’s surgery at the hands of Baptist and the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (Koda) in January. That’s when a former employee of Koda contacted her before sending a letter to a congressional committee that in September held a hearing scrutinizing organ-procurement organizations, NPR reported.

The letter’s author said she saw Hoover begin “thrashing” around on the operating table as well as start “crying visibly”, according to NPR.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
    888·
    17 days ago

    “Were in the middle of harvesting his organs…” He’d be dead by that point.

    They can probably remove the corneas before incisions are made for the major organs, but once they make that first incision, those organs come out in a matter of minutes to be placed in sterile containers.

    “Had gone into cardiac arrest” meaning his heart stopped. From a drug overdose. Anyone here wanna guess what that means? You got it - CPR. Anyone who knows how to actually do CPR knows that if you do it correctly you are breaking ribs. That’s going to hurt like fuck when you wake back up.

    When they harvest organs, they aren’t just specialized butchers in there. These are surgeons, specifically specializing in organ transplant. The room for error in this specialty is 0. Every modern surgery, regardless of it is organ harvesting or not, will ultimately have a “pause” where everyone goes down the list to make sure everything that needs to be checked is checked.

    He likely didn’t get to the pause, he probably woke up before that. He was probably being evaluated by the team, and one individual caught something that had been overlooked. The rest of the team spent time to verify, then determined they could actually revive him. This is not a pleasant experience. He would not have been given pain medication beforehand, as he was in for a drug overdose, I could predict it probably wouldn’t work anyway.

    Whoever went public with this will cause many deaths because of the increase in fear of organ donation.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      44·
      17 days ago

      It depends on how you define, “in the middle”. According to NPR he had woken up during his heart catheter to check it’s health for donation and they just sedated him back down. It was when he went into the final operating room that they refused to do the organ removal. That’s past all the checks that are supposed to be done. If he wasn’t visibly writhing on the table and crying he’d be dead.

    • Sunoiki@lemmy.worldEnglish
      39·
      17 days ago

      Your mixing organ procurement after cardiac death with brain death. It’s the cardiac death donations where they have to move very fast to reduce the warm ischemia time.

      For brain death they can be systematic, corneas sure, but for major organs usually kidneys first, bowel, liver, pancreas if usable (usually with bickering about which team gets more vena cava and aorta). Heart and lungs are functioning throughout the abdominal portion to keep them well perfused, then each is flushed and chilled as it’s passed off. So there is a period of time of ongoing surgery for this to occur.

      But you’re right, the process to declare brain death is lengthy and very formalized. Then while someone from anesthesia is in the room to maintain the body, they are not giving anesthesia. And definitely right about the last point, but it’s a big fuck up.