Witnesses Say Would-Be Kentucky Organ Donor Started ‘Thrashing’ on the Table
The disaster was avoided in a Kentucky hospital when an ostensibly deceased organ donor began to “debate” in the operation, said a curator at NPR.
“He moved,” said Natasha Miller of the patient, which NPR identified as Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II. “He was crying visibly.”
The two surgeons assigned to the transplant naturally refused to follow the procedure, which should take place at Baptist Health Richmond hospital in October 2021. But when his colleague called Kentucky Organiates, who coordinated the harvest, Miller said that the supervisor told them that they were “going to do the trick” and should “find another doctor”.
In a statement in NPR, a spokesperson for the Network for Hope – an organization formed this year by a merger between Koda and the network of LifeCenter organ donors – said that “person in Koda has never been forced to collect organs of any living patient” and that “Koda does not recover organs of living patients”.
Baptist Health Richmond told NPR: “The safety of our patients is always our highest priority. We are working closely with our patients and their families to guarantee that the wishes of donating our patients are followed. ” The Daily Beast contacted the two entities to comment.
Another former Koda employee, Nyckoletta Martin, told NPR that Hoover, who had been believed to be a brain, resuscitated during a procedure to assess his heart health. “He struggled on the table” at that time, said Martin, alleging that his doctors “underlie” him. Martin would finally become the denunciator, submitting a letter to the congress for an audience on organ donation organizations.
A coalition of 1,100 professionals and patients involved in transplantation procedures on a national scale replied in their own letter that “disinformation” “eroded public confidence in organ donation” and discouraging people to register as donors. But nevertheless, several government agencies – the prosecutor general of Kentucky and the US Health Services and Resources Administration – would have investigation.
While the representative of Koda told NPR that “the case had not been represented with precision”, Martin described the incident as “the worst nightmare of everyone”.
“Being alive during surgery and knowing that someone will open and get your parts out of the body?” Martin told NPR. “It’s horrible.”
