Transplant experts are seeing a spike in people revoking organ donor registrations, their confidence shaken by reports that organs were nearly retrieved from a Kentucky man mistakenly declared dead.
It happened in 2021 and while details are murky surgery was avoided and the man is still alive. But donor registries in the U.S. and even across the Atlantic are being impacted after the case was publicized recently. A drop in donations could cost the lives of people awaiting a transplant.
“Organ donation is based on public trust,” said Dorrie Dils, president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, or OPOs. When eroded, “it takes years to regain.”
The interesting thing is, being an organ donor potentially saved his life. If he wasn’t a donor, he could have been sent to the morgue, rather than being surrounded by doctors carefully checking him over.