You may be aware of a Kentucky man waking up as they were about to harvest his organs for donation. It’s good news that Anthony Thomas Hoover II (TJ) is alive, but the circumstances surrounding this event as reported by multiple news sources are horrifying.

Donna Rhorer, TJ’s sister was oblivious to what had happened to her brother and would never have known the truth if not for a whistleblower coming forward. At the time, Nyckoletta Martin was employed by Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) and was in the surgical suit that day. She later resigned because of TJ’s case and testified before Congress in September 2024 about what she saw.

TJ suffered a cardiac arrest and was rushed to Kentucky’s Baptist Health Richmond, a hospital 30 miles away. His brain suffered from oxygen deprivation. That same day doctors told Donna and other family members “there were no reflexes, no brain activity, no brain waves.”

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

The following day the family agreed to remove TJ from life support.

Since TJ was a registered organ donor, the organ procurement team went into action, testing his organs for harvesting. The morning of the intended retrieval of TJ’s organs, he had woken up during a catheterization of his heart, but the family was not informed.

During the hospital’ “honor walk,” the ceremonial moving of an organ donor to the surgical suite, Donna noticed TJ’s eyes were opening and that he was tracking. But she was told by staff that it was only reflexes, a normal event. The family felt they were not qualified to doubt the medical team.

Nyckoletta Martin gave a firsthand account of what she witnessed in the surgical suite that day. TJ was “thrashing around on the table, trying to pull his tube out, and pushing their hands away, crying and shaking his head no. He knew what was going on.” Natasha Miller who was there to preserve the organs said, “He was crying visibly.”

About an hour into the process the doctor came out and told the family TJ had woken up and that he refused to harvest his organs.

Nyckoletta then heard the KODA coordinator call out to the KODA admin, “You will find another doctor to carry out this case. If you don’t you’re going to get fired.”

If this scenario was correct and the medical team had proceeded with a new surgeon, they would almost certainly have been complicit in committing murder by organ donation.

None of this information had been shared with the family until Nyckoletta came forward.

While testifying before Congress in September 2024 Dr. Seth Karp, Surgeon-in-Chief at Vanderbilt University said that it was “not infrequent” that questions came up about the life or death status of organ donors. “The problem is we’ve got 40 years where there has been no oversight at all of OPO’s” (organ procurement organizations).

Organ donation involves significant amounts of money for the medical community. The hospital benefits from billing for harvesting the organs and there’s a double benefit if it is able to also bill for transplanting them into waiting patients.

Evidence is mounting that the lucrative business of organ donation may be enticing medical staff and hospitals to cross the line in taking some lives while saving others.

If so, the subjective definition of determining “brain death” is giving them cover. At one time the American Academy of Neurology stated on their website, “Many of the details of the clinical neurologic examination to determine brain death cannot be established by evidence-based methods. The detailed brain death evaluation protocol that follows is intended as a useful tool for clinicians. It must be emphasized that this guidance is opinion-based. Alternative protocols may be equally informative.” (emphasis added)

If you have second thoughts about being an organ donor, there are specific things you must do. Our website provides links to the requirements of each individual state. More information on this troubling situation can also be found on our website.

LifeNews.com Note: Bradley Mattes is the President of Life Issues Institute, a national pro-life educational group.