I don’t think it was Cali’s mom who heard though the mix up…it was the person’s wife who heard.
So calicash…are you saying that this fellow went to wo.rk, and just never got home…and his wife got a call from the organ donor organization? Never got called at all by the hospital…was waiting for him to come home?
Of so…that is awful. Sudden death of a loved one is shocking regardless of how you hear about it.
I cannot imagine the pain. I for sure would be letting the hospital personnel know, so they could improve their procedures.
Oops, my bad and apologies.
Thanks for the condolences. I just had to vent for a bit.
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close family friends passed away. He signed up to be an organ donor so thankfully, he will be helping some people live. However, his wife found out that he died because someone called his home asking about/ for his organs.
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I think that there is more to the story than this.
The wife may have known that her H was in serious condition, but may not have known that he was to the point of near-death where the option of harvesting organs was immediately at hand and decisions needed to be made quickly.
I thought that when someone is brought into the hospital for serious reasons, the hospital calls the family but is vague about the reasons…“You need to come to X hospital, your child/spouse has been brought in here” sort of thing.
Maybe someone who works in an ER can answer what the protocol is when someone is brought in, maybe brain dead, but still “alive” to the point where organs can still be harvested, the victim has a donor card, and decisions need to be made quickly.
If a person has a donor card, can the spouse veto it? or would the spouse’s only decision be whether the “plug” can be pulled or not if the person is at a point of “no return”?
I was curious, so found a similar story from 2009. You can see how it can happen, but fortunately it is very rare.
If interested, ask Mr Google to find “Wife learns of husband’s death from donation request” Man died street racing his Corvette.
Absolutely the family can veto the organ donation. The hospital needs more permission than just the designation on the license.
A LifeGift spokesperson says they received notification at 8pm from Montgomery County EMS that there had been a fatality. That was one hour after the wreck. They say they called Burkett's home at 9:30pm, assuming investigators had already spoken to the family. They say they never told Burkett's widow he'd been killed.
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LifeGift issued this statement reading in part, “This is the first time in the history of our organization that our call to a family about donation has had this type of unintended consequence. It was not our intention to inadvertently cause Mrs. Burkett to conclude that something had happened to her husband and we extend our sincere apologies to the Burkett family.”
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Doesn’t that second para read strangely???
“it was not our intention to inadvertently cause Mrs. Burkett to conclude that something had happened to her husband…”
If this wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny.
It is very sad. These are well-intentioned people doing good work.
I’m very sorry for the widow, and this was undoubtedly an unfortunate screw-up, but I hope she doesn’t proceed against them.
When Buddy Holly died, his wife found out about it from a news story on the radio. She then suffered a miscarriage. Since then, it has been policy to inform the next of kin before releasing any names. It seems like organ donation requests would be the same! This LifeGift company apparently just assumed that she had been notified. They should have a system in place to insure that the next of kin have been notified.
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A LifeGift spokesperson says they received notification at 8pm from Montgomery County EMS that there had been a fatality.
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This is where the hole is…
An EMS group should not be contacting these organ groups until the Next of Kin has been notified. Or, if EMS has to give the organ group a heads up, don’t provide them any contact info until Next of Kin has been notified.
I remember reading that Harriet Nelson (of Ozzie and Harriet) found out that her son, Ricky Nelson, was killed in a plane crash on the TV news. Horrible.
I didn’t know this. So maybe the families of the donors should be paid for this tissue?
OP, did your relative end up donating their husband’s organs? I would think their reaction might be not to donate. And I wouldn’t blame them!
I’m pretty sure this would be against the law.
I would. It’s horrible to find out that you’ve lost a loved one this way but it should never override the decision of the deceased person to help some other innocent person preserve their own life. It would be incredibly nasty (not to mention disrespectful to the deceased) to not honor their wishes and deprive another family of their loved one.
If there’s a lot of money to be made from donated tissue (from 3boystogo’s post), then just who is making the money?
If the deceased wanted to be an organ donor, then I agree that it would be disrespectful to not honor their wishes. If they hadn’t wanted to (or had never expressed a choice), then I don’t think the donor’s family should be criticized for not donating organs after being informed of their loved one’s death in such a callous and insensitive way.
From the original post:
Even if he hadn’t signed up to be a donor, refusing to do so isn’t punishing the hospital. It’s punishing the people who would suffer and/or die without the donation.
@ CTTC. When baby boys are circumcised in the hospital, their foreskins are sold for medical research and the hospital pockets the money. It’s possible that umbilical cords are sold too, as they contain stem cells.
I am not a registered organ donor. I do want to donate my major abdominal organs but not my eyes, brain, skin, or face. I would also want to be declared brain dead and not just “cardiac” dead. Since there is no current way to ensure this on the forms I have to just let my family and friends know my wishes.