An organ donation service pushed for the removal of a comatose woman’s body parts even after she showed signs of life, medics allege.
Danella Gallegos was 38 and homeless in 2022 when she fell into a coma, with doctors telling her family she would likely never recover.
Her loved ones agreed to donate her organs, but as preparations began, they saw tears in Danella’s eyes, they told The New York Times.
Doctors at the Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque gasped when they asked Danella to blink her eyes, which she did.
Yet hospital workers claim that coordinators from the New Mexico Donor Services called on the operation to happen anyway, shrugging off the movement as ‘just reflexes’.
Doctors defied the coordinator and took Danella out of surgery – she made a full recovery.
Danella, who has complained to the Department of Health and Human Services, told The Times: ‘I feel so fortunate. But it’s also crazy to think how close things came to ending differently.’
An intensive care nurse at the Presbyterian said: ‘All they care about is getting organs.’
The donation service denied the hospital workers’ claims, stressing coordinators do not interfere with medical decisions.
New Mexico Donor Services and the Department of Health and Human Services have been approached for comment.
More than 103,200 people are on the organ transplant waiting list – 13 of them die every day waiting, according to official figures. Every donor can save eight lives and enhance 75.
Organ procurement organisations are the middlemen of this process, working with donors, recipients and doctors to match transplants.
New Mexico Donor Services says it serves two million people in the state by ‘connecting organ and tissue donations to the patients who need them’.
But the Times found that some procurement organisations rush this process, such as approaching a patient’s relatives before they have decided to switch off life support.
Pressure from higher-ups – and how organs after death are only viable for a short time – has led to organ removal surgeries called ‘donation after circulatory death’. They accounted for one-third of all donations last year.
Unlike most organ donors, who are brain-dead, patients have some brain function but are on life support, in a coma and aren’t expected to recover. Doctors switching off life support must wait for a patient’s heart to stop beating within two hours for their organs to be viable.
Has this happened before?
Misty Hawkins, 42, had been in a coma for weeks when her family decided to donate her organs. Doctors declared her dead 103 minutes after turning off life support.
A surgeon sawed through her breastbone, only to find Misty’s heart was still beating and she was breathing. Despite stopping the procedure, Misty died a short time later, the Times reported.
An obituary described Misty as a ‘vibrant spirit who illuminated every room she entered, infusing each moment with her playful energy’.
Misty was the third circulatory death donation attempt ever carried out at Flowers Hospital, a trauma centre in Dothan, Alabama.
The hospital said it had correctly followed its protocols and that Misty was declared dead after ‘five minutes’ of no vital signs or cardiopulmonary function’, referring to the heart and lungs.
During a congressional committee last year, lawmakers heard of Anthony Hoover, who had an overdose in 2021.
Hoover was unresponsive for two days, so his family decided to donate his organs. A federal inquiry found that his neurological condition later improved, yet a donation service continued to push for an operation.
When Hoover was taken for the retrieval, he shook his head and cried and doctors refused to take him off life support.
Investigators found that while Hoover has recovered, he suffered neurological injuries.
Dr Wade Smith, a longtime neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said to the Times: ‘I think these types of problems are happening much more than we know.’
How do organ donations work in the UK?
The UK has an ‘opt-out’ organ donation system, meaning most people will be considered donors when they die.
Transplants are handled through the NHS.
Registering to be an organ donor in the UK is very simple and can be done online on organdonation.nhs.uk, as can opting out of the register.
The law around organ donation is very strict, with the priority always being to save a donor’s life first. Organs are never removed until a patient’s death has been confirmed under specific criteria.
Hospitals confirm whether someone has died a circulatory death (their heart stopped beating for five minutes) or a brain stem death, when they will be unable to regain consciousness and unable to breathe for themselves.
How do I opt out of organ donation?
You need to go on the NHS Organ Donor Register and select ‘do not donate’. This isn’t the same as ‘withdrawing’, which just means NHS officials don’t have a decision about organ donation recorded.
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