‘Brain dead’ Kentucky man, 36, wakes up before organ donation in case that shocked the nation
The family of a man who woke up as surgeons prepared to harvest his organs has revealed tragic new details about a case that shocked America.
In 2021, Thomas ‘TJ’ Hoover II, now 36, was declared brain dead after an overdose sent him to Baptist Health hospital in Richmond, Kentucky.
Donna Rohrer, his sister and primary caregiver, has now revealed he began taking drugs because of anxiety, depression and PTSD that had developed in response to seeing dead bodies in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and Rita.
Hoover had also lost two brothers previously to an overdose, and struggled to hold a job and find a sense of purpose. Just months before he wound up in the hospital, his mother passed away.
On his late mother’s birthday, Hoover took unspecified drugs and passed out when he was loading his car. When EMTs arrived to care for him, he had no pulse.
Days later, after doctors found no signs of brain activity, Hoover’s family made the decision to remove his life support and allow his organs to be harvested for donation, per his wishes.
But as he was wheeled into the operating room, Hoover woke up, and since then, his story has spread across the country and seems to have led to a surge of people removing their names from organ donor databases.
Over a one week period after reports about Hoover’s story went live, roughly 170 people removed themselves from organ donor registries per day.
Thomas ‘TJ’ Hoover II had been rushed to the hospital following a drug overdose. His sister, Donna Rhorer, shared that Hoover got into narcotics after dealing with PTSD, anxiety and depression
That is 10 times higher than the number of people who removed themselves over the same period in 2023.
Representatives from Gift of Life Michigan, a state-specific organ donation network, told the Associated Press that some of the people who removed their name mentioned Mr Hoover’s case specifically.
This adds more stress to what is already a stressed system – where an estimated 17 people in the US die each day waiting for an organ transplant.
Since 2021, Rhorer and whistleblowers from the hospital have lifted the lid on what happened that day.
They claim doctors told family members that scans showed no activity in Hoover’s brain, and asked if they wanted to fulfill his wishes of becoming an organ donor.
The family agreed to take him off life support and send him for organ donation once he had passed.
From there, officials from Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) stepped in to coordinate the transplant.
Natasha Miller, who was working for KODA at the time and in the room during Hoover’s almost-surgery told CNN that shortly after being wheeled into the transplant room, Hoover began thrashing around, even as his body was shaved and he was draped with a surgical sheet.
Thomas ‘TJ’ Hoover II, 36, had been declared brain dead when surgeons went to remove his organs at Baptist Health Richmond Hospital in Kentucky in October 2021. He came to when doctors were prepping his body for surgery
She said she saw tears rolling down his face and in a shock new report, said she saw him shake his head no.
Miller said: ‘No one was comfortable doing the case from the hospital.’
Then, Miller said coordinators called managers at KODA to tell them the case needed to be shut down.
Miller alleged that higher ups from the organization pressured in-person staff at Baptist Health to proceed with the surgery, according to CNN’s reporting.
Rhorer and the rest of Hoover’s family didn’t learn about what happened in the operating room until Nycki Martin, a surgical preservationist for KODA at the time, reached out after seeing Rhorer post about the ‘miracle’ on TikTok.
According to CNN, Martin shared details with Rhorer about what happened on the operating table, and the doubt that medical staff had allegedly expressed when preparing Hoover for surgery.
Rhorer said if she and her family had known their was doubts about his consciousness, ‘we would never have sent him for his organs to be harvested’.
In response to comments from Martin, Miller and Rhorer, representatives from Network for Hope, the organization that has absorbed KODA since the 2021 incident, denied the incident.
Donna Rhorer, his sister, has become his legal guardian. Rhorer said that doctors initially advised her to put Hoover into a nursing home, but that she decided to take her brother home to help him get his strength up
Their president and Chief Operating Officer Julie Bergen, told NPR: ‘No one at KODA has ever been pressured to collect organs from any living patient.
‘KODA does not recover organs from living patients. KODA has never pressured its team members to do so.’
The hospital Baptist Health Richmond has also insisted ‘the safety of our patients is always our highest priority.
‘We work closely with our patients and their families to ensure our patients’ wishes for organ donation are followed,’ a spokesperson for the hospital told NPR.
The claims against KODA and the hospital are being reviewed by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the national agency that regulates transplants.
As the fallout from that October day continues to unfold, Hoover is moving forward with his life.
Rhorer took her brother home with her to live and helped him gather his strength so that he could enter physical therapy.
Despite bleak prognoses from his doctors, Hover was well enough to be able to walk Rhorer down in the aisle in May 2023.
He still has a hard time balancing, talking, seeing and some limitations to his short term memory. Rohrer told FOX56 that he used to love going to the woods, camping and watching deer, hiking, ‘all things outdoors,’ so the limited mobility is a challenge.
Still, she’s grateful. She told CNN she wants people to know that organ donation is ‘a beautiful thing’ adding: ‘What can you give somebody more precious than love? But at the same time, it shouldn’t be abused.’
