Organ donor started moving and crying moments before procedure, report says

An organ donor came back to life thrashing and crying just as doctors prepared to harvest his body parts, an NPR report has revealed. The incident happened in 2021 and the publication spoke to witnesses who recalled the incident.

Thirty-six-year-old Thomas 'TJ' Hoover II's sister and former Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) employees told NPR that he was declared brain dead. The surgeons prepared to remove his organs at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital in Kentucky in October 2021 and were about to check his heart health when he showed signs of being alive.

“He was moving around — kind of thrashing. Like, moving, thrashing around on the bed,” Natasha Miller, a former KODA employee told NPR in an interview. “And then when we went over there, you could see he had tears coming down. He was crying visibly.”

Hoover was taken to the hospital on the same day following a drug overdose and was declared brain dead. His sister told NPR that she saw Hoover seemingly open his eyes and look around while he was being taken from the Intensive Care Unit to the Operating Room. However, the doctors dismissed it as a common reflex.

But the surgeons backed off, refusing to go ahead with the organ removal procedure after Hoover started moving. “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.”

The case coordinator at the hospital for KODA then called her supervisor for advice, who reportedly told her to "find another doctor".

"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 said.

"She’s crying — the coordinator — because she’s getting yelled at."

Several employees quit, took therapy to recover from the incident

The organ retrieval was called off and several employees quit afterwards.

Nyckoletta Martin, another organ preservationist who quit KODA but was not assigned to the case, said she reviewed case notes and was shocked to learn that the patient was showing signs of life as the doctors went in to check his heart health.

Martin alleged that the doctors sedated the patient when he woke up and plans to harvest the organs were still in place at the time.

“That’s everybody’s worst nightmare, right? Being alive during surgery and knowing that someone is going to cut you open and take your body parts out?” Martin says. “That’s horrifying.”

The details of the incident came to light in September when Nyckoletta Martin wrote to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A hearing investigating organ procurement organisations was later held.

“Several of us that were employees needed to go to therapy. It took its toll on a lot of people, especially me,” Martin told NPR.

The allegations are being reviewed, the Kentucky state attorney general’s office told NPR.

KODA dismisses allegations

Meanwhile, KODA refuted the allegations. Julie Bergin, president and chief operating officer for Network for Hope, which was formed when KODA merged with the LifeCenter Organ Donor Network, said in a statement, "No one at KODA has ever been pressured to collect organs from any living patient."

"KODA does not recover organs from living patients. KODA has never pressured its team members to do so.”