http://www.lifenews.com/2012/11/20/19-year-old-recovers-as-doctors-start-to-harvest-her-organs/

The world of organ donation in Denmark is in turmoil. A docuмentary was aired earlier this month which showed family members reacting in anguish to the news that their 19-year-old daughter was brain dead after a car accident, agreeing to donate her organs and allowing doctors to turn off her respirator. About 1.7 million viewers tuned in to the heart-rending drama.

But Carina Melchior did not die after her respirator was removed. She is now undergoing rehabilitation and may make a full recovery. About 500 people immediately removed their names from Denmark’s organ donor register.

Doctors at Aarhus University Hospital were embarrassed by the incident. “We are overjoyed that the young woman survived and that she is moving on after the accident,” Claus Thomsen, the hospital’s chief medical officer, said. “But we made a mistake underway and made the family believe that their daughter and sister would die.”

The hospital acknowledged that the question of organ donation should not have been raised as there were no unambiguous signs that brain death would occur. New guidelines have been introduced to ensure that relatives will only be approached about organ donation if no more treatment options are available. There was no risk of a false diagnosis of brain death, the hospital insisted.

But in more bad publicity for the hospital, a Danish tabloid profiled a man who had been falsely diagnosed as brain dead in 2002. He recovered quickly.

Aarhus University Hospital is investigating both cases, although it insists that the correct procedures were followed in the earlier case.

Carina’s family is now suing the hospital for damages. Her family’s lawyer claims that she keeps asking whether her doctors were trying to kill her. “Those bandits in white coats gave up too quickly because they wanted an organ donor,” Carina’s father told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet.

The word truly needs to get out!

It was exactly midnight when Colleen Burns eerily opened her eyes and looked at the operating lights above her, shocking doctors who believed she was dead and were about to remove her organs and donate them to patients on the transplant waiting list.

The Syracuse Post-Standard unearthed a  report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  that chronicled the series of errors that led to the near-organ removal on a living patient at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2009.

"The patient did not suffer a cardiopulmonary arrest (as docuмented) and did not have irreversible brain damage," the HHS report concluded. "The patient did not meet criteria for withdrawal of care."

Read about Sarah Murnaghan's lung transplant.

According to the report, doctors had inaccurately diagnosed Burns with irreversible brain damage and ignored nurses who'd noticed signs that Burns was improving: She curled her toes when touched, flared her nostrils and moved her mouth and tongue. She was also breathing on her own even though she was on a respirator.

Burns was initially found unresponsive and surrounded by empty bottles of Xanax, Benadryl, a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory drug on Oct.16, 2009, according to the report. She was hypothermic and had a weak pulse, but she was alive.

In the St. Josephs emergency room, doctors performed toxicology tests and determined Burns was suffering from a multidrug overdose, according to the report. She was unresponsive and put on a ventilator.

Poison control specialists recommended using activated charcoal to stop Burns' body from absorbing the drugs, but it never happened, according to the report. Doctors couldn't get the tubes into her body. As a result, the HHS report concluded, it's possible Burns continued to absorb the pills she'd ingested, but doctors never did more toxicology testing to find out.

Read about organ donation in other countries.

Soon, Burns was having seizures, but subsequent head CT scans on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18 appeared normal.

Still, the EEG brain scans indicated "poor prognosis" on Oct. 18, so doctors planned to "wait and see" whether Burns would improve over the next few days, they told HHS investigators in August 2010, according to the report. That same day, however, doctors told the family that Burns' brain damage was irreversible and that she'd undergone "cardiorespiratory arrest."

The family made the decision to take Burns off life support and donate her organs the next day.

Although Burns opened her eyes at the last minute, saving herself from the organ harvest procedure, she committed ѕυιcιdє in 2011 at age 41. The family never sued, and family members told the Syracuse Post-Standard that Burns was too depressed to be upset about what happened to her at St. Joseph's.

Hospital officials eventually concluded it's possible that the drugs resulted in the unresponsive state doctors mistook for irreversible brain damage, according to the HHS docuмent.

Drug overdoses can mimic brain death, but American Academy of Neurology guidelines should keep doctors from failing to recognize the difference, said Dr. Eelco Wijdicks, a member of the American Academy of Neurology who was the senior author on its list of guidelines for determining brain death. Wijdicks did not treat Burns and said he could not comment on her case.

 

Also another report from a different website added
Before the procedure, Burns was given an injection of the sedative Ativan, but neither the sedative or the observations of life were recorded in the doctor's notes for the procedure.


Dr. David Mayer, a general vascular surgeon and associate professor of clinical surgery an New York Medical College, said the application of a sedative is quite strange.


'It would sedate her to the point that she could be non-reactive,' Mayer told the Post-Standard. 'If you have to sedate them or give them pain medication, they're not brain dead and you shouldn't be harvesting their organs.'


It wasn't until Burns opened her eyes in the OR that the procedure was called off.


DEFINITLEY SUSPICIOUS.

It was exactly midnight when Colleen Burns eerily opened her eyes and looked at the operating lights above her, shocking doctors who believed she was dead and were about to remove her organs and donate them to patients on the transplant waiting list.

The Syracuse Post-Standard unearthed a  report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  that chronicled the series of errors that led to the near-organ removal on a living patient at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2009.

"The patient did not suffer a cardiopulmonary arrest (as docuмented) and did not have irreversible brain damage," the HHS report concluded. "The patient did not meet criteria for withdrawal of care."

Read about Sarah Murnaghan's lung transplant.

According to the report, doctors had inaccurately diagnosed Burns with irreversible brain damage and ignored nurses who'd noticed signs that Burns was improving: She curled her toes when touched, flared her nostrils and moved her mouth and tongue. She was also breathing on her own even though she was on a respirator.

Burns was initially found unresponsive and surrounded by empty bottles of Xanax, Benadryl, a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory drug on Oct.16, 2009, according to the report. She was hypothermic and had a weak pulse, but she was alive.

In the St. Josephs emergency room, doctors performed toxicology tests and determined Burns was suffering from a multidrug overdose, according to the report. She was unresponsive and put on a ventilator.

Poison control specialists recommended using activated charcoal to stop Burns' body from absorbing the drugs, but it never happened, according to the report. Doctors couldn't get the tubes into her body. As a result, the HHS report concluded, it's possible Burns continued to absorb the pills she'd ingested, but doctors never did more toxicology testing to find out.

Read about organ donation in other countries.

Soon, Burns was having seizures, but subsequent head CT scans on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18 appeared normal.

Still, the EEG brain scans indicated "poor prognosis" on Oct. 18, so doctors planned to "wait and see" whether Burns would improve over the next few days, they told HHS investigators in August 2010, according to the report. That same day, however, doctors told the family that Burns' brain damage was irreversible and that she'd undergone "cardiorespiratory arrest."

The family made the decision to take Burns off life support and donate her organs the next day.

Although Burns opened her eyes at the last minute, saving herself from the organ harvest procedure, she committed ѕυιcιdє in 2011 at age 41. The family never sued, and family members told the Syracuse Post-Standard that Burns was too depressed to be upset about what happened to her at St. Joseph's.

Hospital officials eventually concluded it's possible that the drugs resulted in the unresponsive state doctors mistook for irreversible brain damage, according to the HHS docuмent.

Drug overdoses can mimic brain death, but American Academy of Neurology guidelines should keep doctors from failing to recognize the difference, said Dr. Eelco Wij####s, a member of the American Academy of Neurology who was the senior author on its list of guidelines for determining brain death. Wij####s did not treat Burns and said he could not comment on her case.

 

Also another report from a different website added
Before the procedure, Burns was given an injection of the sedative Ativan, but neither the sedative or the observations of life were recorded in the doctor's notes for the procedure.


Dr. David Mayer, a general vascular surgeon and associate professor of clinical surgery an New York Medical College, said the application of a sedative is quite strange.


'It would sedate her to the point that she could be non-reactive,' Mayer told the Post-Standard. 'If you have to sedate them or give them pain medication, they're not brain dead and you shouldn't be harvesting their organs.'


It wasn't until Burns opened her eyes in the OR that the procedure was called off.


DEFINITLEY SUSPICIOUS.

It is more than suspicious. This is a supposedly "Catholic" Hospital under the patronage of St Joseph, Patron of a Happy Death!

In my country, heart transplant was pioneered in another so-called "Catholic" Hospital, St Vincent's, by a doctor who was later gunned down in the street. He is still regarded as a hero today, in spite of his work in heart transplants. A heart is no good for transplant unless it comes from a person who is still alive (or "brain dead" as the saying goes.)

This patient would have been kept on a respirator even though she was  breathing on her own not for her own benefit but so her heart would be in better shape for somebody else.


Stbrighidswell, next time could you give a heading and a link, please.

Sorry

Here is the link to the story in Daily Mail which had the part about Ativan being given to her, this was left out of the other website I read.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358597/Woman-opened-eyes-doctors-New-York-hospital-began-organs-donation-believing-brain-dead.html