I know that these stories are around. When these things have happened, it’s usually because the local neurologist or neurosurgeon isn’t very good, and declares brain death too early. In some states, two different doctors have to sign off on it, and agree.

The local hospital only very, very rarely gets an organ from a donor in the same hospital. The donor hospital has no say in anything…it gets handled by the regional non-profit that does the matching (based on lots of lab work between the donor and the recipients—who already have that lab work completed before they get on the list). It is also very,very rarely doctors who work at the local hospital who do the organ retrieval…the transplanting surgeons fly out to the donor hospital. I know because I asked my friend about these rumors and wanted to hear the real stuff. So I asked a lot of questions.