A Kentucky man shocked doctors after he was pronounced dead of a drug overdose. Anthony Thomas Hoover IInicknamed TJ, is said to have started showing signs of life right in the middle of the surgery, per NPR. Surgeons planned to remove all of his organs for medical donation.
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The family found that TJ was still alive before the surgery
According to NPR, the medical incident allegedly occurred in October 2021 at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital. Now, his sister, Donna Rhorer, is sharing what that experience was like.
Donna informed the hospital that he had registered as an organ donor. However, while medical staff took him to the operating room, Donna and other family members present claimed TJ opened his eyes. While Donna believed it was TJ’s way of saying, “I’m still here,” the medical staff assured her that it was a normal reflex for the recently deceased.
Doctors canceled the removal of human organs after this happened
Afterward The body of Anthony Thomas Hoover II was brought to the operating room, where Natasha Miller noticed some disturbing movements in the patient. At that time, her job was to preserve body parts that were removed for donation. Miller said that he “Like moving, banging on the table.”
After witnessing the movement, Miller said the two surgeons in the room did not feel confident in continuing. “It was very chaotic. Everyone is very upset,” Miller added.
The nonprofit allegedly asked another doctor to remove the organs
After the judge surgeon withdrew, the Kentucky Organ Donor Association (KODA) reportedly asked the hospital to “find another doctor” to retrieve TJ’s organs. Natasha recounts a conversation she overheard having with the KODA hospital case coordinator.
“So the coordinator called the supervisor at that time. And she was saying that he was telling her that she needed to ‘find another doctor to do it’ – that, ‘We’ll do this. She needed to find someone else,” Miller recalled. “And she said, ‘There’s no one else.’ She was crying — the coordinator — because she was being yelled at.”
Not only that, Miller also confirmed that after the Kentucky man showed signs of survival, he was injected with a sedative. However, this procedure was eventually abandoned. Donna says the person who saved her brother was him “There are so many signs of life.”
Before bringing her brother home, Donna Rhorer alleges medical professionals told her to keep him comfortable because he wouldn’t live long. However, three years later, she is still caring for TJ amid his difficulties with walking, talking and his memory. each person.
Meanwhile, KODA has denied accusations of pressuring employees to remove organs despite signs of life. While they confirmed that Natasha was assigned to the organ retrieval, the nonprofit told NPR that what happened was not “accurately presented.”
“No one at KODA has ever been pressured to collect an organ from any living patient,” KODA representative Julie Bergin said in a statement to NPR. “KODA does not recover organs from living patients. KODA has never pressured its team members to do so.”
According to Health Resources & Services Administrationa government initiative, there are 103,223 men, women and children on the transplant list, and another is added every eight minutes. Furthermore, 17 people die every day while waiting for a transplant. In 2023, more than 46,000 transplants were performed across the country.
TJ’s sister admitted to NPR that she feels angry about what happened to her now 36-year-old brother.
“I felt betrayed by the people who told us he was brain dead and then he woke up,” Donna Rhorer said. “They are trying to play God. You know, they’re almost selective – they’re going to arrest this person to save these people. And you kind of lose faith in humanity a little bit.”
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