Kentucky man declared brain dead wakes up during organ donor surgery

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

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, “All I had was my gut instinct for three years that something wasn’t what we were told.”

On October 25, 2021, Rhorer’s brother was admitted to Baptist Health Richmond’s emergency room. He was experiencing cardiac arrest and deemed code blue.

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

The following 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 started opening up, he was tracking, his eyes were tracking looking around. We were told by the supervisor it was just reflexes, it was just a normal thing.”

TJ was then taken into the organ retrieval surgery.

His sister says about an hour into it, the doctor came and got them, telling them he wasn’t ready and had woken up.

“But we also hadn’t been told during his heart catherization that morning, that he woke up then. ‘Cause if we had known that, then clearly we would have known he wasn’t brain dead,” she says.

Rhorer was told to take TJ home and make him comfortable, as he wouldn’t live long.

Rhorer’s been caring for her brother for three years now.

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 Kentucky Organ Donor affiliates at the time, contacted her.

She and other witnesses came forward, their testimonies heard before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in September.

Dr. Seth Karp, surgeon-in-chief at Vanderbilt University says, “It’s not infrequent that something comes up around the donor and whether or not the donor is dead. And the problem is we’ve had 40 years where there has been no oversight at all of OPOs. (Organ Procurement Organizations)”

The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office says they are now looking into the case.

In a statement from Baptist Health Richmond, they say, “We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients’ wishes for organ donation are followed.”