American man declared brain dead awakens shortly before organ removal

Concerns about hospital and organ donation procedures have been raised after a Kentucky man woke up moments before organ removal.

According to a report by US public broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR), Natasha Miller, a Kentucky Hospital employee, was preparing to store donated organs for transplant when nurses wheeled the donor, Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II, into the operating room.

Natasha immediately noticed that something was wrong. The donor appeared to her to be very much alive, even though he had been found to be brain dead.

“He was moving around and sort of flailing. He was moving and thrashing around on the bed,” Miller said NPR in an interview. “And then when we went there you could see he was in tears. He was visibly crying.”

The donor's condition worried everyone in the operating room at Baptist Health Hospital in Richmond, Kentucky, including the two doctors who refused to participate in the organ harvesting, she says.

“The ordering surgeon said, ‘I’m out. I don't want anything to do with it,'” Miller says. “It was very chaotic. Everyone was just really excited.”

Miller says she overheard the case coordinator at her employer's hospital, Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA), asking her supervisor for advice.

“So the coordinator calls the supervisor at the time. And she said he told her she had to 'find another doctor to do it' – meaning, 'We would take this case. She needs to find someone.' otherwise,'” says Miller. “And she says, 'There's no one else.' She’s crying – the coordinator – because she’s being yelled at.”

The case of Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II is currently being investigated by state and federal government officials. In a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives, whistleblower Nyckoletta Martin explained observations she made while working for Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates at the time of the incident.