Disaster was averted at a Kentucky hospital when an ostensibly deceased organ donor began “thrashing” around in the operating theater, a preservationist tells NPR.
“He was moving around,” Natasha Miller recalled of the patient, whom NPR identified as Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II. “He was crying visibly.”
The two surgeons assigned to the transplant naturally refused to go through with the procedure, which was reportedly scheduled to take place at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital in October 2021. But when her colleague called Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, which coordinated the harvest, Miller said the supervisor told them they “were going to do the case” and needed to “find another doctor.”
