Live organ donor almost had body parts harvested, witnesses say

A terrified organ donor came back to life, thrashing and crying on the operating room table, as surgeons prepared to harvest his body parts, according to witnesses - with one described as 'everybody's worst nightmare.'

Thomas 'TJ' Hoover II, 36, had been declared brain dead when surgeons went to remove his organs at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital in Kentucky in October 2021, his sister and former Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates employees told NPR.

But as doctors went to test his heart health for transplantation, Hoover reportedly became reanimated.

'He was thrashing around on the table,' Nyckoletta Martin recounted, claiming the patient was just sedated.

Then, as the surgeons prepared to remove his organs, Hoover began 'moving around' and 'was crying visibly,' according to Natasha Miller, another former employee. 

Hoover had been rushed to the hospital after a drug overdose that day, and was declared brain dead.

But his sister, Donna Rhorer, said she became concerned when Hoover seemed to open his eyes and look around as he was being wheeled from the Intensive Care Unit to the Operating Room.

'It was like it was his way of letting us know, you know, "Hey, I'm still here,"' she said.

She and other family members were told, however, that it was just a common reflex.

It wasn't until after Hoover began to move around and cry that the surgeons decided not to move forward with the transplant.

However, Miller said that when her colleague called KODA - which had coordinated the transplant- the supervisor told them they were 'going to do this case' anyway and the hospital needed to 'find another doctor.'

'It was very chaotic,' she recounted. 'Everyone was just very upset.'

Ultimately, the organ retrieval was canceled, and several employees quit in the aftermath.

'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 said. 

'That’s horrifying.'

She added that several of the employees who worked on the transplant had to seek therapy in the aftermath.

'It took it's toll on a lot of people,' Martin said, 'especially me.'

She has since become a whistleblower, submitting a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the incident as it held a hearing investigating organ procurement organizations.

'It's very scary to me now that these things are allowed to happen, and there's not more in place to protect donors,' Martin said.

But Julie Bergen, the president and chief operating officer for Network for Hope - which was formed by a merger between KODA and LifeCenter Organ Donation Network - has denied the incident.

'No one at KODA has ever been pressured to collect organs from any living patient,' she told NPR.

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

Baptist Health Richmond has also since insisted 'the safety of our patients is always our highest priority. 

'We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients' wishes for organ donation are followed,' a spokesperson for the hospital told NPR. 

Other organ donor advocates have argued that such mistakes are rare, as they slammed Martin and other whistleblowers for discouraging the operations.

'For over five years, our nation's organ procurement organizations (OPOs) - the nonprofit, community-based organizations that work with grieving families every day to save lives through transplantation - have been subject to malicious misinformation and defamatory attacks based on hearsay, creating a false narrative that donation and transplantation in the US is untrustworthy and broken,' the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations wrote in an open letter on October 3.

'Ignored is the fact that there has been 13 years of consistent growth in organ donation by OPOs, leading to a record 43,000 organs transplanted and lives saved through deceased donation last year.'

Dr. Robert Truog, a professor of medical ethics, anesthesia and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, also said incidents like what Hoover went through are 'horrifying' and 'need to be followed up carefully.

'But I really would not want the public to believe that this is a serious problem,' he said. 'I believe that these are really one-offs that hopefully we'll be able to get to the bottom of and prevent from ever happening again.'

The Kentucky Attorney General and US Health Services Resources Administration are now investigating the terrifying incident. 

Meanwhile, Rhorer says her brother has had issues with his memory, walking and talking ever since, and she has had to become his legal guardian.

'I do feel angry,' she said.

'I feel betrayed by the fact that the people that were telling us he was brain dead, and then he wakes up. 

'They are trying to play God,' she claimed. 'They're almost, you know, picking and choosing - they're going to take this person to save these people. 

'And you kind of lose your faith in humanity a little bit.'