What happened to this man who was believed to be dead is causing trouble in France

A patient declared to be in a state of cerebral death ;ebrale woke up as he was about to have his organs harvested. An American story that had serious repercussions in France.

This is a story from 2021 in the United States which has just resurfaced through the media NPR. TJ Hoover, 36, was pronounced dead after an overdose. Doctors were about to harvest his organs, the 30-year-old being on the donor list. During the operation, they suddenly noticed that the patient was still alive, starting to move and even crying according to some accounts. Specialists assured that he was brain dead and that his family had made the difficult decision to agree to take him off life support. Despite tests to ensure that the organs were viable, the staff had noticed nothing abnormal.

Today, TJ Hoover is still alive, despite some difficulty walking or talking. Witnesses, including those working in the organ harvesting center, have decided to come out of silence in order to have the procedure re-examined. Several people were thus heard in September before the Energy and Commerce Committee of Congress. An investigation has been opened, according to the local press.

While this terrible story took place on the other side of the Atlantic, it has already had repercussions in France. According to the Biomedicine Agency, refusals of organ donations have multiplied since this revelation. It has thus noted an increase in the number of registrations on the national register of refusals, which have been ten times more numerous than in normal times. "The fact of conveying this information is very damaging and casts opprobrium on organ donation and transplantation in France", the Agency reacted to AFP on October 22.

An impossible error in France ?

However, she assures that this "would be impossible in France", given the procedures for declaring a patient dead. They consist of a series of examinations, including imaging, to avoid any errors. In addition, the Biomedicine Agency added that this reported story is “highly suspect from the point of view of French anesthetists”.

She also wanted to reassure by publishing an article to redefine brain death and re-explain its link with organ donation: “Brain death corresponds to the total and definitive cessation of brain activity: irreversible loss of brain functions leading to death. It is this death, the diagnosis of which is very rare (less than 1% of hospital deaths), which allows organ donation, since, despite the total destruction of the brain and the loss of all its functions, the heart can continue to beat thanks to medical resuscitation techniques”.  

Organ donation is itself very regulated, being practiced only in two cases: a living donation for the kidney or the donation of a deceased person after "a rigorous, secure and transparent diagnosis". According to Dr. Julien Rogier, anesthesiologist-resuscitator and head of the unit organ donation at the Bordeaux University Hospital, for TF1, there are not the same rules in France and in the United States:  "The big difference with the United States is that probably, in the case of this American patient, the brain scan was not mandatory, so there was no confirmation".