CNN — Three years ago, Anthony Hoover woke up in a Kentucky hospital to find people shaving his chest, bathing his body in surgical solution and talking about harvesting his organs.
Hoover, known as TJ, was 33 years old and had been hospitalized after an overdose.
Doctors seemed to be trying everything, his family members said, but the news had been crushing: brain damage, lack of reflexes, emptiness in his eyes.
Medical staff said he was brain-dead, TJ’s sister, Donna Rhorer, told CNN — a conclusion spelled out in black and white in his medical records – and they planned to remove life support.
“At a cost of $200,000 per transplant, the cost of these procedures can be estimated to nearly $10 billion per year. The entire transplant industry of physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies rests on the supply organs.” – The Economics of organ transplantation, ScienceDirect.com, 2006 [The average cost for a kidney transplant in 2025 is around $446,800.]
TJ was also registered as an organ donor. He was young and relatively healthy. His family heard from an organization then called Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, or KODA, about all the lives he could save as his was ending.
They agreed that they should do as he wished and allow his organs to go to people in need.
On October 29, 2021, TJ was wheeled to the OR for the five-hour procedure. Less than two hours later, a staff member came to talk with his family.
“He’s not ready,” they said. “He woke up.”
TJ’s family thought it was a miracle.
But former employees of the organ procurement organization working on TJ’s case say it was a breach of trust – one called it a “disaster” — that a man who was making eye contact, shaking his head “no” and thrashing on the table should never have been in the operating room, that a man who left the hospital to live with family weeks later shouldn’t have been at risk of losing his life.
The hospital, Baptist Health in Richmond, Kentucky, and the organ procurement group declined interviews with CNN.
The hospital said in a statement that “the safety of our patients is always our highest priority … ”
How To Remove Yourself From a Donor Registry
If you registered through your local motor vehicle department
Donate Life America – Please go to your state’s online registry to update or remove your donor registration. You can find your state’s online registry, as well as a contact person for that registry, here.
Click on the name of your state to access the state registry website. If it is not clear how to change your decision on the state registry website, or if you need further assistance, please call or email the contact person listed next to your state.
- Exception: If you registered through your local motor vehicle department in the states of Alabama and Mississippi, please follow the instructions below to remove your donor registration record.
If you registered through the National Donate Life Registry
- Go to Registerme.org
- Click on “Access your registration” (located near the top of the page)
- Complete the form fields
- Click “Sign In”
- If you are registered in the National Donate Life Registry, your donor registration record will open and you will see options to edit or remove your donor registration record
If you are having issues accessing your donor registration record in the National Donate Life Registry at RegisterMe.org, please check the information you entered and try again. If you need additional support in accessing your registration, please contact customer support at [email protected] for assistance.
*How you may have registered in the National Donate Life Registry:
- At RegisterMe.org or DonateLife.net
- In your iPhone Health App
- On the Walgreens App
- As a resident in the state of Alabama or Mississippi at the DMV
- As a resident of Alabama, Mississippi, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, New Mexico or New Jersey through your state’s online registry
- At OrganDonor.gov if you are a resident of the states listed above
- Through other Donate Life Partner websites and other online opportunities to save lives!
