I am glad to hear that your niece and mother have fully recovered. You are right that the experts do not know much about the brain. If you want something to go wrong, hope for the heart. The experts know almost everything about the heart.
I don’t know the specifics of your cases, but I would caution you that brain death is far different from a coma, or a patient on life support. It is a medically verifiable condition, that must be met before a patient is even considered a candidate for donation. There are numerous other procedures that must occur as well.
By suggesting removal from life support, it would seem like they were not interested in organ donation. Once life support is removed, the organs are not usable.
Sometimes the hospitals mention it as a means to start the tissue typing process, just in case. But that certainly doesn’t mean they are ready to start removing organs. Medical professionals can be insensitive, which can be terrifying to the families of patients. But there are plenty of laws to prevent organs from being harvested from patients that are not really dead.
I understand that is how it is supposed to work, and likely does in most cases- so what do you think happened in the case this article highlights?