A “dead” heart donor came to life on the operating table: surgeons were asked not to stop (photo)

Several members of the team resigned.

At a hospital in Kentucky, a transplant donor woke up on an operating table as doctors prepared to remove his heart.

About this reports NPR.

Thomas Hoover was admitted to Baptist Health Richmond in October 2021 after suffering a drug overdose. Doctors declared him dead and began running tests to see if his organs should be harvested.

Natasha Miller was one of those who were tasked with preserving organs​​​​​​at the hospital that day. She said when nurses brought Hoover, 36, into the room, he appeared to still be alive.

“He moved like he was shaking,” Miller recalled. “And when we came to him, we saw that the tears were flowing from him. It was clear that he was crying.”

His condition shocked several people in the operating room and forced the two doctors assigned to perform the surgery to withdraw.

Miller says she heard a case coordinator from the Kentucky Organ Donation Association (KODA) earnestly urge new doctors to perform an unethical procedure.

“So the coordinator calls the supervisor at the time. And she says he told her she had to ‘find another doctor to do this’ – ‘we’re going to to do this thing.” She needs to find someone else,” Miller told the publication.

Another employee, Nicoletta Martin, said she was shocked to learn the donor had previously shown signs of life when doctors checked his heart to make sure it was suitable for a transplant.

“That morning, the donor woke up during the heart catheterization procedure. And he was banging on the table,” said Martin.

This incident led to the resignation of several members of the team.

“I have dedicated my entire life to organ donation and transplantation,” said Nicoletta. “I am now afraid that things like this are allowed and that there are no measures in place to protect donors.”

Hoover’s sister said the victim opened his eyes too much while being wheeled from the intensive care unit to the operating room, but doctors said the movement was reflexive and did not mean Hoover still alive.

“It was like his way of letting us know, you know, ‘Hey, I’m still here,'” said Donna Rohrer, Hoover’s older sister and current trustee.

KODA representatives deny that any member of their group instructed doctors to perform surgery to remove organs from a living patient.

The Kentucky Attorney General said investigators are looking into the case. The US Health Resources and Services Administration is also investigating the allegations.

Hoover survived and now lives with his sister. He has recovered, although he still has some problems with memory, walking and speech.

Let us remember that a mother died in front of her two children after being bitten by a domestic hamster. She did not make it to the medical facility.

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