Kentucky man declared brain dead wakes up during organ donation surgery

RICHMOND, Ky. (WKYT) – A Kentucky woman is fighting for organ donation reform.

Her brother had been declared brain dead, but as doctors prepared to remove his organ for donation, he reportedly woke up.

Donna Rhorer, sister of Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II, says, “For three years I just had a gut feeling that something wasn’t what we were told.”

On October 25, 2021, Rhorer’s brother was admitted to the emergency room at Baptist Health Richmond. He suffered cardiac arrest and was classified as Code Blue.

She says they were told he had “no reflexes” and “no brain activity, no brain waves.”

The next day, Rhorer’s family decided to remove TJ from life support. That’s when they were told he was a registered organ donor.

To honor his wishes, the next two days were spent testing TJ’s organs to see what was viable, including a cardiac catheterization to test his heart.

His sister says: “During his honor walk, his eyes opened, he tracked, his eyes looked around. The supervisor told us it was just reflexes, it was just a normal thing.”

TJ was then taken into organ harvesting surgery.

His sister says about an hour later the doctor came and picked them up and told them he wasn’t ready and had woken up.

“But we weren’t told during the cardiac catheterization that morning that he then woke up. Because if we had known that, we would have known clearly that he was not brain dead,” she says.

Rhorer was told to take TJ home and make him comfortable since he wouldn’t live much longer.

Rhorer has been looking after her brother for three years.

She says he made several attempts to say, “Hey, I’m here,” but “it was kind of ignored.”

Rhorer didn’t learn these details until January of this year, when Nyckoletta Martin, who was working with organ donor organizations in Kentucky at the time, contacted her.

She and other witnesses came forward and their testimony was heard by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in September.

Dr. Seth Karp, chief surgeon at Vanderbilt University, says, “It’s not uncommon for something to happen around the donor and whether the donor is dead or not. And the problem is that there has been no oversight of OPOs at all for 40 years. (organ procurement organizations)”

The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office says it is currently reviewing the case.

A statement from Baptist Health Richmond said: “We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients’ wishes for organ donation are met.”