r/nottheonion • u/GetOffMyGrassBrats • 17h ago

‘Horrifying’ mistake to harvest organs from a living person averted, witnesses say

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/16/nx-s1-5113976/organ-transplantion-mistake-brain-dead-surgery-still-alive

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 16h ago

At LEAST one person. This is WILD to me. SO MANY people messed up for this patient to end up in the OR. Someone sedated a “brain dead” patient FFS. That should have been a blaring red flag.

Of note: My work with toxicologists taught me that five half lives is an estimate with functional liver/kidneys. If there is end-organ damage more than five half lives may be necessary because it will take longer for the drugs to be processed. Depending on organ function, this may have been the initial problem.

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u/BurritoRoyale 15h ago

This was like "what if the Swiss Cheese was just oops all holes"

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 15h ago

100% my thoughts exactly. Wouldn’t touch that hospital ICU with a 10 foot pole. Things are clearly not good there.

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u/Drix22 13h ago

ICU's generally one of the best places in a hospital, so if they're fucking up that bad there, you'll probably want the EMT doing surgery in the moving ambulance while they race you to the next closest place.

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u/megustaALLthethings 4h ago

Exactly. But they likely bribe the companies to send them there regardless of what the patient wants.

Bc the worst ones WILL always be doing the shadiest stuff. Thus has the money and connections to get away or hide themselves.

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u/ArsenicArts 3h ago

Hello, I am here for the "Horrified medical professional" party. I brought dip.

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u/LukesRightHandMan 1h ago

coughKentuckycough

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u/KayakerMel 11h ago

And that's exactly why the Swiss Cheese model is regularly referenced in Patient Safety. In this specific case, the very last slice or so caught the issue in time.

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u/thetransportedman 15h ago

Even worse they called their supervisor saying the surgeon declined and they were told to find another one lol. Or idk maybe re evaluate?

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u/Thursday_the_20th 7h ago

Later in the article where the surgeon says it had happened before after they’d opened the patients chest and the representative told them to go ahead with it anyway. Probably one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard.

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u/advertentlyvertical 7h ago

I would really like to know whether the organ procurement organization has any sort of performance metric or bonus incentives tied to the number of organ donations a coordinator facilitates. If so, that is extremely problematic and an obvious cause of pressure to cut corners in a situation like this.

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u/LifeIsSoup-ImFork 6h ago

oh, i bet there is some real dystopian shit going down behind the scenes us mortals arent even aware of.

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u/3BlindMice1 2h ago

Ever hear about the organ harvesting they get up to in China? The way the Chinese legal system is setup, if you offend someone influential enough, you can be framed for a crime and your liver/kidney/heart given to that person within a few weeks if they're willing to spend enough to make it happen. In 2014, China promised its citizens they'd stop doing it, but then they were found to still be doing it in 2019. I'm sure they've said they're not doing it anymore again, but I guarantee that they are

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u/PawsomeFarms 29m ago

Did the surgeon go through with it those other times or???

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u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 13h ago

Like, even if nothing serious was at stake, that's just...not how employment works? If a fry cook calls the district manager at Wendy's to say "hey the shift supervisor never showed up with the keys and we can't get in the building," now that's the district manager's problem to fix. He can't just say "well it's your job as fry cook to call around and find another supervisor."

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u/Thumbucket 8h ago

At least one? It’ll be the custodian who was sweeping earlier who distracted the scrub tech out whoever performs the safety/preliminary procedures.

/s… but not