Well, I wanted to hear some thoughts from people who are more knowledgeable than me about this subject. I'm not even sure if this is the right section to ask these questions..(sorry if it's misplaced) I've recently come across strange posts somewhere on the internet and also in real life (yahoo answers and some other website, and in real life too) where people were claiming that they harvest your organs before you're dead, listing cases like Zack Dunlap as an example -- and then they say that's why they wouldn't want to be organ donors as the doctors wouldn't put as much effort into saving them, and that they don't want to be cut open while 'still' being alive.. I then tried to look up some info on Zack Dunlap's case, but couldn't find any answers as to whether this was due to failed diagnosis (in other words caused by the negligence of the docs), or whether this was a 'miracle' as his parents and co claimed. Short story about Zack Dunlap's case: he was declared brain dead, thus legally deceased after like 36 (or was it 38) hours because according to tests there was no blood flowing through his brain any more, but "miraculously" he came back to life while they were already preparing to harvest his organs..and recovered quickly.. Are there more such cases in today's world? People apparently claim that there are 'numerous' such cases, but I was quite unsuccessful when searching online. :shrug: And now, I wanted to know what exactly does it mean when someone is legally dead, and how do we determine whether someone is irreversibly brain dead, or not. Apparently in Zack Dunlap's case this brain dead method didn't work, unless it's because of negligence and they're lying or I don't know what. I always thought that brain dead means that your brain activity is 0 and thus all the organs dependent on its signals stop working (not able to breath on his own, and so on).. but then I've read claims by people that you can be declared as dead if just your cerebral cortex stops functioning while your brainstem still does...(I thought it's the other way around) -- is this true? is that considered as legally deceased? (With progressing science it seems to become even more complicated to determine when someone is really dead..as they can keep a body 'alive' with today's technology..) And how does the organ donation process work anyway? I know that it has to be quickly done to get the organs in time, but first one has to be declared as legally dead, to get the harvesting of organs started.. Is there really a remaining possibility that one could come back to 'life' while already lying on the surg. table? I'm super confused about this now, mostly since I don't really understand the brain death concept (which could also be partially due to the fact that I've never really looked into 'brain' matters). I don't really know anything about these things, so bear with me! And thanks for all the answers in beforehand Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
In the USA, organs are immediately harvested after death in cases where patients have previously given consent for organ donation. If immediate removal has to be delayed, then organs can be preserved by infusing a preservation solution into the bloodstream. The goal is to keep the organs being harvested perfused with blood so they maintain functionality. There are living donors, cadaveric donors, and non-heart-beating donors. Non-heart-beating donors are people who are declared dead by cardiopulmonary criteria (their heart's not beating, they aren't breathing). Cadaveric donors are usually people who have brain death or brain trauma but are maintained by mechanical ventilation with either cardiopulmonary bypass or their own hearbeat to keep oxygenated blood flowing through the system until organs are harvested. I don't know much about people springing back to life after death, sorry. I don't know the details of how that happened. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The problem comes with the definition of 'death'. Once this was easy. If the heart stops beating the person is dead. Today, though, many people whose heart has stopped beating have been revived. So today, cessation of brain electrical activity is normally used as a sign of true death. 99.999% of the time, that works very well. What makes this trickier is that organs are best fresh. So the medical staff are faced with the dilemma that someone may die if they are too slow harvesting the organs, but they have to be sure the donor is dead. This creates a conflict. I am listed as a donor. I accept that there is a one in a million chance that, when I die, I may miss out on the chance to be revived because of over-eager medical staff. However, I consider that acceptable since my organ donation will save the life of someone else, or at least boost their quality of life. I have a friend who received a donor kidney. The change in his life is staggering. He is now doing things that were previously impossible and enjoying life to the full. To achieve that for other people is worth a very tiny risk to yourself as donor.
@Skeptical When all brain activity has ceased to be found is the legal definition of death in America today from my understanding. If one does not have any family members that are alive to help them , no one would know that their organs were harvested as they are creamated after they die. @PsychoTropicPuppy In that case the doctors did what they were supposed to do and it isn't a common happening that this event would be always going on because it was a very rare thing.
Same here...and part of that is, if my brain's been without significant electrical activity for any length of time...yes complete recovery happens...but it very much isn't the norm. In other words I would be significantly to profoundly impaired-and worse, probably able to remember a time when I was smart. Why would I want to wake up to that??? Most people with profound brain injuries dont get everything but the conveniently blissful bits knocked out. In my brief unhappy stint working in a nursing home I took care of a guy who recovered from a brain injury-when they thought he was in an irreversible coma. He was learning how to dress himself again...he was rather like a 4-year old, other than the advanced case of potty mouth, and the size. There was a case here one of the organ techs mentioned...they were about to unplug the guy and do an organ recovery, when the fellow came to and started talking to his wife. She (the tech) found it most disturbing, naturally. I asked why they came back with empty kidney pods and coolers... Cadaver kidneys can be used, but they have a higher failure rate. I think livers have to be from donors on life support, the same with hearts. According to the wikipedia page on the subject, those with poorly-controlled diabetes and kidney failure may get a pancreas/kidney transplant from the same donor...but I don't hear that talked about often, so I'm kind of guessing it's pretty unusual. Live liver donation is actually a possibility-the live donor gives a stub to the transplant-needing person, and both the donor and the donee can regrow a whole liver, because the liver's a pretty resilient organ. Dangerous op though-the donor can bleed out. That all has to be done at the hospital, so I know less about it. They do less crucial stuff onsite here-they take skin (for burn victims) heart valves (but they remove the whole heart for sterile transport), saphenous veins (I forget what those get used for-heart surgery?), tendons (I think, gotta ask about that...) bone for bone marrow transplants, whole eyes and corneas through the Lyons eye bank. So the deceased donors are brought here, then they go to the funeral home to get fixed up for the funeral. I'm signed up to donate all my chitterlings and tissues; but apparently stretchmarked skin isn't any good. Since I *was* enormously fat, I doubt they could peel me successfully. Oh, and apparently they want asthmatic lung tissue for research-so I could posthumously contribute to the cure for asthma. Cool. One thing though...If I start driving too recklessly on the way to work, I start thinking: "Naw, I want to arrive at the frontdoor, not the loading door," and slow down a bit. Edited b/c I saw this: Right now we have an "opt-in" system. Unless that person, or someone legally authorized to do so, gives written consent, the organs/tissues aren't going to get taken-not legally anyway. So, no, they don't just go take your innards. I believe there's a guy in jail for doing this with bone marrow-funeral home in either Brooklyn or New Jersey. The owner was making a profit by removing bone marrow from deceased people...but it was totally illegal, and he's in jail-criminal penalties, not civil. The really despicable part of what that funeral home guy did? a lot of those people died of stuff that made them ineligible for transplant-malignancies. People were transplanted with this bone marrow.
But there's actually no possible way to find out because the bodies are cremated. If anyone does take organs from the dead and they don't have anyone to step up and say something, who then "talks" for the dead? It is very difficult for a anyone to find out if a hospital does this sort of thing because there aren't any investigators at the hospital watching over the morgue that I've ever read about. Perhaps you know more about this so please enlighten us as to how they are found out if they do take their organs illegally.
(Mind you, this applies to the U.S.) Ok, I can't for 100% certainty say that what you allege might be happening-the harvesting of organs from indigent people-isn't happening. But this is why I'm almost 100% certain it is not happening. You need a large cadre of docs and an operating suite at the hospital-you can't just open up a cadaver furtively and take their organs in some room somewhere-and then expect those organs to function in the donor, because most of the organs can only be recovered for a very brief time after the heart stops beating. Nor could you expect them to not be contaminated with pathogens that would kill the donor, unless you had a sterile operating area. You need a surgeon who specializes in this to do the removal correctly, plus a support team. There are only a few surgeons who specialize in transplantation in any given state. The hospital itself isn't just going to OK an operating room for an illegal op. The surgeon could lose his or her license-they aren't going to run that risk. I seriously doubt the hospital's going to OK any such thing either. Deaths are reported to the state, and all the paperwork has to be in order or the donation doesn't take place. If the recovery (which takes a team of people) isn't a sterile operation (as in-done in an OR) the donor will likely get an infection-as in order to prevent rejection, most recipients take drugs that effectively make their immune system very weak...A rather new procedure is to stomp the recipient's immune system out a la leukemia treatment...then implant the bone marrow of the donor along with the transplant organ-meaning no rejection...but an increased risk of dying from the process...and as they have NO immune system left, any pathogen's likely to kill them. So no operating suite, no written permission=no recovery. Furthermore,the organ and tissue transplant nonprofits are a network of organizations that all work together to match up donor parts to recipients who need them...and the documentation has to be 100% all the way around, because there's federal accreditation standards and random audits of books and such. So the logistics of just popping out the organs of indigents...no, it doesn't make sense. It's almost unforseeable that anyone would risk losing their licensure like that.
Doctors are not the only people qualified to declare death, by the way. If a death occurs at home and was expected, there is no need to call doctors or emergency assistance. If a person dies in hospice, the family can call hospice. If a death is unexpected or malice is suspected, the medical examiner is notified. Otherwise a nurse or physician performs the pronouncement and completes a death certificate. Of all people who die in the USA, very few die unexpectedly or suddenly. Most people die after a prolonged period of illness and a gradual deterioration, usually within hospitals or nursing homes.
The brain suffers irreversible damage after three minutes without oxygen. This is why, when doing CPR, it's more important to massage the heart and keep blood flowing than to maintain breathing. There is still some oxygen in the blood after the lungs shut down. New techniques are being tested. By lowering body temperature slightly and administering drugs, a dog was revived after twelve minutes of clinical death with no brain damage. All animals are different. A cat has been revived after one hour of clinical death, with no extraordinary measures taken. That old "nine lives" legend!
I'm not listed as a donor...Sorry, I just can't kick the fear that medical staff might yank my innards instead of reviving me right away...
Fraggle There is apparently a case on record of a young woman being trapped inside a Great Lakes shipwreck during a scuba expedition. After at least 20 minutes not breathing, she was rescued and revived. Chilly cold water was the key. Apparently, she suffered no brain damage.
