Surgeons set about harvesting organs from Anthony Thomas 'TJ' Hoover II, brain dead after a drug overdose and devastating heart attack. Then he woke up. The case is "under investigation by state and federal government officials," according to local news media.
Rhorer said she noticed Hoover's eyes open up and seemingly track his loved one's movements, according to WKYT. "We were told it was just reflexes – just a normal thing," she said to the outlet.
"Who are we to question the medical system?"
About an hour after Hoover had been brought into surgery for his organs to be retrieved, a doctor came out and explained that Hoover "wasn't ready".
I love the idea that living people are aren't "ready" for organ harvesting.
Koda issued its own statement to NPR maintaining that Hoover's case "has not been accurately represented", that the organization has never collected organs from live patients and that no one there has ever been pressured to do so.
Our "we have never collected organs from live patients" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by the shirt.
The donor's condition alarmed everyone in the operating room at Baptist Health hospital in Richmond, Ky., including the two doctors, who refused to participate in the organ retrieval, she says. "The procuring surgeon, he was like, 'I'm out of it. I don't want to have anything to do with it,' " Miller says. "It was very chaotic. Everyone was just very upset." Miller says she overheard the case coordinator at the hospital for her employer, Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA), call her supervisor for advice. "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' – that, 'We were going to do this case. She needs to find someone else,' " Miller says. "And she's like, 'There is no one else.' She's crying — the coordinator — because she's getting yelled at."
What is death but preparation? Find another doctor. Get him ready.
