When my best friend’s son was in a tragic car accident with a brain injury from which he would not survive, my friend decided to donate his organs (which were not affected at all by the accident). The doctors told us that unless he was certified brain dead by two independent physicians that could not happen. The action of “pulling the plug” on the respirator did not leave him as a candidate for harvesting as we did not know how long he would survive without help breathing—two hours, two days??? The transplant team must be summoned while the patient is on life support AND brain dead. Tragically (and fortunately) she did not have to make the decision to end life support as he went brain dead a few hours later. At that point the respirator was dialed down and he was kept alive until the transplant doctors from all over the country could be summoned. They all need to be there at the same time to harvest and take the necessary arteries and such as needed to place in the specific recipient.
All this is probably more than most of you wanted to know about the harvesting of organs but it gave the family some solace to know that their beloved son did not live and die for no reason—many others live on because of all that they gave.
This article is so far off base that it should be taken down from FR. A patient with a genetic disease, given high doses of morphine and then harvested??? Doesn’t make any sense.
“All this is probably more than most of you wanted to know about the harvesting of organs but it gave the family some solace to know that their beloved son did not live and die for no reason—many others live on because of all that they gave.”
Exactly.