Brain-dead man wakes up as doctors harvest organs
An unseen medical miracle reaches us from the US state of Kentucky. An American man who had been declared brain dead after a cardiac arrest woke up there at the very moment surgeons were harvesting his organs.
This incredible incident happened in October 2021. 36-year-old Thomas “TJ” Hoover II was declared brain dead there after he was brought in with cardiac arrest following a drug overdose. Doctors saw no more brain activity on scans, so they took him off life support.
According to hospital staff, Hoover had given permission to donate his organs after his death. And so the surgeons began testing which organs were still suitable for donation. But Thomas opened his eyes several times. Doctors initially thought it was reflexes, but it turned out there was more to it. Indeed, the man was coming back to life. He began floundering and visibly crying on the operating table.
His sister was then instructed to take her brother home and make him comfortable because he probably would not live long. But we are now three years later and Hoover, according to his family, is doing pretty well all in all. “He sometimes has problems with his memory and he can't walk or talk very well, but he's alive,” said his sister, who has become her brother's legal guardian.
(FVDV for Tagtik/Source: The Guardian/Illustration picture: Unsplash)