Transplant donor wakes up on operating table as doctors prepare to remove his heart in nightmare scenario: witnesses

A nightmare scenario unfolded at a Kentucky hospital when a transplant donor woke up on the operating table just as doctors prepared to remove his heart, according to witnesses.

Thomas TJ Hoover was taken to Baptist Health Richmond Hospital in Kentucky in October 2021 after a drug overdose. Doctors declared him brain dead and proceeded to perform tests to see if it was worth harvesting his organs, NPR reported.

Natasha Miller was one of the people in charge of preserving organs at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital that day. She told the publication that when nurses carried Hoover, 36, into the room, he still looked very much alive.

“He was moving — kind of flailing,” Miller told NPR. “And then when we went over there, you could see he was crying. He was visibly crying.”

His condition shocked several people in the operating room and caused two doctors in charge of the procedures to refuse to participate.

Most sickening of all, Miller says he heard the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates case coordinator callously request new doctors to perform the unethical procedure.

“So the coordinator calls the supervisor right away. And she was saying that he was telling her that she needed to “find another doctor to do this” – that “we were going to take this case.” She needs to find someone else,’” Miller told the outlet.

Another KODA employee says that when she looked into Hoover’s case, she made a shocking discovery. Nyckoletta Martin says she was shocked to discover the donor had already shown signs of life as the doctor examined his heart to see if it was viable for transplant.

“The donor woke up during the procedure that morning for a cardiac catheterization. And he was struggling on the table,” says Martin. According to case records, the Hippocratic jurors only sedated the wrestler Hoover when he stood up – and proceeded with their plans to harvest his organs.

The incident caused several KODA staff members to resign from their positions.

“I have dedicated my entire life to organ donation and transplantation,” Martin told NPR. “It’s very scary to me now that these things can happen and there are no longer measures in place to protect donors.”

Hoover’s sister says the overdose victim opened her eyes while being transported from an intensive care unit to an operating room — but was told the movement was reflexive and did not mean Hoover was still alive.

“It was like his way of letting us know, you know, ‘Hey, I’m still here,'” Donna Rhorer, Hoover’s older sister and current guardian, told NPR.

KODA officials denied that any member of their organization instructed doctors to carry out an organ harvesting operation on a living patient.

The Kentucky state attorney general said investigators were looking into the matter.

The Fed’s Health Resources and Services Administration is also investigating the allegations.

Hoover survived and currently lives with his sister. He has made a wonderful recovery, although he still has some problems with memory, walking and speaking.