Organ donation after death: thoughts and experiences?

Scott Allen10,
just wondering
if someone never officially signed up to be an organ donor
and then it actually happens and they ask
who really gets the final say here?

is it the donor's mother or the spouse????

Who even has the authority to decide? I've been stuck on this dilemma for a while now. I already made my stance clear to my family—my mom, my sister, and my husband.
But I'm still confused about my husband's side of things. Honestly, if anyone asked my mother-in-law, she’d probably lose her mind and just say NO. She's the type who refuses to stay informed about anything.
It's such a mess. People avoid the conversation because they get these twisted ideas from movies, and frankly, it creeps me out.
If I have a donor card, I want to help someone, just like I hope someone will step up for me if I ever need it.

So, mother or spouse????😕 😕 😕

Jose Miller3 said:Look, tell me this, Scott Allen10:

I’ve had my donor card for ages, but the emergency contact on there passed away a while back. So, who actually makes the call if I go? You mentioned that family wishes are always respected, but my family is basically non-existent. My closest relative is my brother ( 😘 if he's around here) and we haven't spoken or even seen each other in 🤔 like 10 years, so there's no way he should be deciding my stance on organ donation when he doesn't even know what I believe. Can I just put this URL on my card so someone can actually see THAT I WANT THEM TO TAKE EVERY SINGLE LAST ORGAN I HAVE??

Hmm... funny you mention that, because I was actually chatting about something pretty similar with my coordinator at the Mayo Clinic just the other day... He told me something along the lines of, "if someone really has no close family left but holds a valid donor card in their own name, they would definitely move forward with the organ retrieval process."
There's more to the explanation, too... first off, like we talked about, there's legal protection for that.
And second, consent for retrieval follows a specific hierarchy of priority starting with a spouse, children, parents, siblings, or a legal guardian (if one exists ) and then "any other person legally authorized to manage the deceased's remains."
So, they aren't listing distant cousins or random relatives, which means unless they have some kind of legal authorization ( 😕 !!...), they shouldn't have any say in the decision regarding retrieval.
I don't think some random URLs would make much sense in your situation since nobody is going to be scrolling through links given how delicate these decisions are—you know, to prevent any tampering. But honestly, I think your situation is pretty straightforward, and there shouldn't be any reason, God forbid, for your wishes not to be honored.

Ronald Lopez3 said:Scott Allen10,
I was wondering
about what happens if someone hasn't officially signed up to be an organ donor
and then the moment comes where they have to ask
who actually holds the final say

is it the mother of the potential donor or the spouse????

Who is the one person who gets to make that call? I'm asking because this has been weighing on my mind for quite a while now. I’ve already laid out my own stance to everyone in my family—my mom, my sister, and my husband.
But I'm really stuck on how things would go down with my husband specifically. Honestly, I think my mother-in-law would absolutely lose her mind if anyone even brought it up, and I'm pretty sure she'd just say NO. She's one of those people who doesn't know much about any of this and just shuts down.
It's such a heavy issue, especially since people avoid talking about it like the plague because they get all these scary ideas from movies, which honestly creeps me out.
If I have my donor card ready, I want to be able to help someone out, just like I hope someone will do for me if I ever end up in that position.

So, is it the mother or the wife????😕 😕 😕

Well, he laid out the hierarchy of importance in his last post...

In your situation, it's definitely the spouse!...

Scott Allen10 said:"if someone truly doesn't have any close family left and they've signed up as a donor under their own name, I'd definitely push for the organ procurement process to move forward..."

That's awesome!

Some random URLs probably don't even matter in your situation—I mean, nobody is going to go digging through them given how sensitive this whole thing is... (you know, the risk of things being manipulated).

That was just a joke 😁, honestly I'm HOPING nobody actually checks a URL to see if I really meant what I 😉

But I feel like your situation is pretty straightforward—like, there shouldn't be any reason, God forbid, for your wishes to be ignored.

Why "God forbid"? Honestly, I’m hoping my life ends with me getting hit by a subway train or something, rather than lying in some hospital ward waiting for my "inner enemy" to finally win...😢

I'm gonna copy-paste something I wrote on another forum a while back when I was explaining the whole process in more detail to some guy...

Listen, nobody—and I mean absolutely nobody—is ever harvested for organs without brain death being indisputably confirmed first, and that only happens to patients being treated in intensive care units. Let me give you a recent example just so I can paint a picture of how this actually works on the ground...

The patient, let's call him Mr. X, had suffered a massive brain bleed. He had surgery and was moved to the ICU afterward. He was comatose, hemodynamically unstable with high blood pressure that was incredibly tough to manage, and high intracranial pressure. We were hitting him hard with meds to bring down the brain swelling, several types of heavy-duty antihypertensives, and prophylactic doses of antibiotics along with all the necessary fluid and blood replacements.
By the third or fourth day, his blood pressure started dropping below the target range, so we had to step up the vasopressors to keep him stable. A brain CT showed massive swelling that just kept progressing despite the surgery and all the medication we were pumping into him.
On the fourth day, the patient starts producing a lot of urine and he doesn't react at all to any painful stimuli. Those are some of those clinical red flags that suggest brain death might have occurred.
By day five, nothing has changed; he’s still in critical condition and still on all the prescribed meds. The anesthesiologists on duty decide to run a few clinical tests which, if they come back negative, make it almost certain the brain is gone.
First, there's the atropine test. We administer atropine intravenously, and in a healthy brain, it always triggers a significant spike in heart rate. In this case, nothing happened.
Then comes the corneal test. We take a tiny cotton swab and lightly touch the patient's sclera. A normal, living brain will trigger an automatic blink reflex. Here? Nothing. We can run a few more tests to check for other brainstem reflexes, too.
Next is the really crucial one: the apnea test. Since this kind of patient is always on a ventilator, we follow a very strict protocol where we briefly disconnect them from the machine a few times to monitor their attempts at spontaneous breathing, their CO2 levels, and a few other parameters. If the brain is working, the buildup of CO2 in the blood will force the body to try and take a breath. Here, there was zero response. Brain death is pretty much a certainty at this point.
While those tests are happening, we’re also evaluating whether the patient is even a candidate for donation—checking that the head injury/illness is isolated, making sure there aren't any malignancies or other chronic or acute issues that would be a contraindication, and so on...
Toward the end of the day, we decide to perform a brain scan (scintigraphy) to definitively confirm if the brain is dead. With a crew of 4 or 5 people from the anesthesia team, the patient is moved to the nuclear medicine department for the scan. We use a portable ventilator, a portable monitor to track heart rate and blood pressure, and continuous IV infusions via pumps to maintain stability.
We inject a radioactive isotope—usually Technetium—into the vein and use a gamma camera to track how that isotope moves through the bloodstream. If the precise images show no trace of the isotope in the head area, it means there is no blood circulation in the brain and the patient is brain dead.
After the imaging, the nuclear med specialist says there's basically no circulation in the brain, though they aren't 100% sure about one specific segment because the image quality isn't perfect.
Well, whatever, let's get back to it.
On the sixth day, we do another brain scan, and this time it shows a crystal-clear picture of zero cerebral circulation, and we get the signed paperwork stating everything unequivocally.
We head back to the shock room and call in the neurosurgeon or neurologist on call. They review the scan report and look closely at the actual images themselves. They also perform a mandatory neurological exam on the patient to confirm once and for all that the brain is completely dead.
First, we grab the paperwork—it’s called the Brain Death Certificate. We fill out all the patient's details and check off which specific medical method was used to confirm brain death. An anesthesiologist and a consulted neurosurgeon or neurologist both have to sign off on it, along with their official stamps. We look at the wall clock, and whatever time those two specialists sign that paper becomes the legal time of death.
At that point, the patient is officially dead, even if their heart is still beating, their blood pressure is steady, they're producing urine, and the ventilator is doing all the breathing work for the body. There is absolutely zero chance of anyone "waking up from a coma" because once the brain is gone, the person is gone (I think the late Pope said something similar once, too).
ONLY THEN do we approach the family to ask for their consent regarding the organ procurement process.
We call the family in, and in what is an incredibly heavy, gut-wrenching situation, we break the news of the death that has already been medically confirmed. We explain how we reached that conclusion and then gently ask for their written permission to proceed with organ donation.
In such a tense, heartbreaking atmosphere—honestly, I don't know how people find the strength to even speak—the spouse signs their consent right there on that Brain Death Certificate.
IF CONSENT ISN'T GRANTED, everything stops immediately, period. There's no point in pushing further. Since the patient is legally and physically deceased, they are taken off the ventilator, even if the heart hasn't stopped yet.
But if they do give the okay, then the whole process can move forward...
......

So, that's basically how it plays out before we get the green light....which means it's fundamentally impossible to just "write someone off" to harvest their organs; there aren't any shady deaths happening like that. If you're curious, I can try to write up what happens next when I have a free moment, so we can clear up some of this nonsense that's been floating around the internet...

Sean Hernandez5 said:I'm not sure how things work in other parts of Europe, but I assume it's pretty much the same since we don't just make our own rules here...

From what I understand, it’s actually the opposite.
You sign up if you want to be a donor, and then you get a donor card that you just carry around with you...
If you haven't signed anything, your family gets to decide whether or not they want your organs used.
Otherwise, they aren't allowed to take them.
If they end up taking them anyway and the family never finds out—like, say, if you pass away at a hospital...—I honestly don't know. 😁

So, the whole organ donation process kicks off once the spouse signs off on the explant authorization, but only after the brain scintigraphy confirms there's absolutely no blood flow left. Once that’s set, you've got the attending anesthesiologist and the neurosurgeon sign the official "Brain Death Certificate." It’s pretty heavy stuff, but basically, the exact hour and minute those two specialists sign that form becomes the official time of death—that’s the timestamp that goes straight into the registry and onto the death certificate.

So, right now we’re looking at a situation where brain death has been legally and fully confirmed, but since the heart is still beating and the blood pressure, breathing, kidney function, and metabolic balance are all being held steady by the ventilator and those vasoactive drugs, it's a pretty heavy thing to process.

So, the hospital coordinator just gave the final green light to the national coordinator over in New York City, confirming we’ve got an organ donor and the family has officially signed off on the transplant.

The way things work around here usually breaks down into two main paths.

First off, once you stop treating whatever caused the death—usually stuff like trauma or brain bleeds—everything shifts toward keeping those vitals steady. You're basically aiming to keep blood pressure at least at 100 mmHg and keeping that central venous pressure under 5 or 6 mmHg, while making sure they're hitting an hourly urine output of at least 50 ml/h. To pull that off, we focus on optimal fluid replacement, mostly by running saline, Ringer's lactate, or 5% glucose through an IV. I remember seeing this quite a bit during my training; if the donor starts putting out too much urine, they can lose a ton of potassium really fast, so we'll often toss some potassium chloride into the infusion just to stay ahead of it and keep things balanced.

And honestly, that’s where things get really complicated, because they have to go through this whole intense diagnostic process to check the donor's overall health just like they would for any specific organ.

So, here comes this... uh... let’s just call it the "Famous Paper" because I can't wrap my head around the actual technical name right now. It’s basically this massive document filled with all these grids and little boxes where you log every single data point, and everything is written in English too. It’s essentially an international protocol used by every transplant center out there to make sure all the findings are documented perfectly clearly, especially if a specialized team from out of town shows up to collect an organ. See, sometimes for one reason or another, we might not be able to use an organ locally, so through UNOS, those details get shared with nearby transplant centers whose teams then fly in to pick them up. Of course, there's always that nagging possibility that nothing can be used at all... and then... well, it's all just for nothing.

I’m just gonna drop all my lab results and target organ metrics right here as I get them, so I don't have to go back and recap everything later on.

So, we’re back at it again with the blood draws for all those deep-dive lab tests—everything from CBC and electrolytes like potassium and sodium to kidney markers like urea and creatinine, plus liver stuff like AST, ALT, and GGT, and even things like amylase, troponin, and lactate levels... It feels like we're constantly repeating these tests throughout the whole process, but honestly, if we need results fast, the lab techs at the hospital are absolute lifesavers and always go the extra mile to help us out.

They also grab a blood sample for the Blood Bank to run all those serology tests—you know, checking for things like hepatitis, HIV, and syphilis—plus they double-check the blood type and Rh factor, though we've actually already got that part sorted out. When it comes to organ transplants, the folks over at the Blood Bank really step up and make sure these samples get absolute priority.

We’re pulling the whole kit and caboodle for microbiology—everything from peripheral blood draws and samples from the central line to urine and tracheal aspirates—and then we just bundle it all up to send over to the lab at Mayo Clinic.

They call it a biopsy because they have to grab some lymph node samples from the donor to handle the "crossmatching"—basically checking if the donor's tissue actually matches the recipient's at the National Marrow Donor Program. So, you’ve got this surgeon showing up with two assistants and a scalpel, heading straight for the groin area to cut through the skin and subcutaneous tissue to hunt down those femoral lymph nodes. The real kicker, though, was that Dr. Miller showed up—he's this notorious klutz who is so incredibly clumsy that a job that should take maybe fifteen or twenty minutes drags on for nearly an hour. We were all sitting there just praying to God that he’d prep everything right and wouldn't accidentally nick the femoral vein, let alone the femoral artery, because that would be an absolute disaster. But hey, I guess luck was on our side for once; he managed to snag a few nodes, tossed them in a container, and handed them over to us.

They also grab another four or five test tubes—each one a different color, mind you—to pull more blood, and then they ship the whole lot off to a lab in New York City for all those extra tests that ensure everything is totally safe for the recipient.

It’s honestly hilarious when you think about it—someone just hops in a car, grabs these samples, and heads straight for the station, whether it’s a bus or a train, doesn't even matter. Depending on which one leaves first for New York City, we’re basically handing off this precious package of blood and lymph nodes to some totally bewildered driver or conductor, telling them, "Hey, a federal agent is waiting in NYC to pick this up." It sounds insane because it is. The poor guy usually just avoids eye contact, probably thinking we're pulling some kind of prank on him... hehehe....

So anyway... back to the donor... we call in a radiologist to run an ultrasound on the organs. He shows up, starts poking around the target organs, measuring the liver, spleen, pancreas, and kidneys... mumbling under his breath, acting all grumpy, and finally mutters that the liver and spleen look enlarged. He says the kidneys seem fine, but he’d feel better if the urologists took a look since they’re the "real experts." So, we call them in, and the whole ritual repeats itself... they come over, take all the measurements again, check the urea and creatinine levels, watch the urine output... and then they say, "Yeah, kidneys are good!" And everyone’s all happy because they get to participate in the transplant process to "learn something," as they put it....

When it comes to a heart ultrasound, the radiologist claims he isn't qualified, saying, "Look, let the cardiologist handle it, that's their bread and butter." We call the cardiologist, and he’s like, "Sure, no problem, but I can't come to you because I can't do a heart ultrasound with your machine; I need my own equipment, and it's too massive to move." ...Crap! Now what? We end up packing up the donor and hauling everything over to Cardiology. We're talking portable ventilators, portable monitors, three infusion pumps, a backup oxygen tank, and a crew of 4 or 5 anesthesiology staff tagging along... it's a whole production. You see people in the hallways crossing themselves and praying as we pass by... man, what a mess. We finally roll up and we're first in line... the cardiologist does the ultrasound, measures the heart dimensions and chambers, checks the wall thickness, stroke volume, cardiac output, ejection fraction, and all those other vital stats needed for the surgeons. He finally says, "Alright, we're done." So, we drag this entire circus back to the ICU, where we barely made it because we almost ran out of oxygen in our tanks.

In the meantime, the hospital coordinator called in an ophthalmologist to check the corneas and give an opinion. He pulls out his gadgets, looks things over... and once he's finished, he tells us nothing looks special and the corneas are fine, which is exactly what he writes down on the Official Paperwork.

Once the coordinator wraps up all the findings and fills out the Official Paperwork, they fax this whole disorganized mountain of documents to the national coordinator. From there, it’s all reviewed by folks at the major transplant centers who sift through the data, analyze everything, and pull from the database to find not just the first available match, but the absolute best candidate. Once someone is picked, the "chase" begins to get them admitted to the transplant center as fast as possible. Around here, that means places like Mayo Clinic or big metropolitan hospitals depending on what organs we're talking about.

Hours tick by, and the donor is pretty much stable with steady blood pressure, a good pulse, and decent urine output—though we have to tweak things occasionally with vasopressin from the doctors, and we have to suction the airway a few times (to put it bluntly, we're cleaning out the gunk).

Finally, the coordinator walks in and tells us the news: they called, and the liver and pancreas are a no-go because they're enlarged, and the enzyme levels are hitting the upper limits, meaning the liver tissue isn't ideal for a transplant. The kidneys are fine, but the genius cardiothoracic surgeons are insisting on a coronary angiogram... mrrrr..... Motherf***ing hell!... grrrrr... mrrrrr. ...Nothing left to do but start all over again and play the idiots for a second time, dragging a dead man and a mountain of gear back to Cardiology.

Luckily, the guy on call knows his way around invasive cardiology. He deftly works the catheter on the coronary artery, and we manage to get it done relatively quickly before heading back to the ICU. We email the CD of the angiogram images to those genius cardiothoracic surgeons... They tell us pretty quickly that "everything looks good" and that they'll all arrive together once they pack up, usually around 2 or 3 in the morning, and they casually remind us to have five liters of coffee ready for them....

.......

Jose Miller3 said:Just asking for a hypothetical—and I really hope nobody here is actually dealing with this—but how would you even react if someone somehow implanted killer organs inside you?

🤣 Honestly, I couldn't care less whose kidney it is, as long as the damn thing actually works... 😁

And just like that, after a total grind of a day where we all really put in the work and left it all on the field, we’re finally winding down into a quiet night...

So, let me just lay out how everything stands right now... Basically, brain death was officially confirmed after a full legal medical review, so that part is set in stone. They’ve formally declared the passing, and we finally got the green light on the transplant authorization—which is huge because nothing moves an inch without that paperwork. All the right authorities have been looped in to coordinate the next steps, and they’ve already run those massive rounds of testing to make sure the organs are actually viable and, more importantly, safe for whoever ends up receiving them. Now, we’re really just sitting tight and waiting for the surgical teams to arrive on the scene.

The patient is looking a bit more stable now, though we're having to push higher doses of dopamine and norepinephrine through the infusion pumps via the central line just to keep their blood pressure within a safe range. We also had to stay on top of the diabetes insipidus—which happens quite a bit in cases like this where you're dealing with massive urine output—but we’ve got that under control by hitting them with regular doses of vasopressin and keeping the IV fluids running heavy.

Kinda off-topic, I know, but I was thinking about how intense ICU care can be. You see people who are basically gone, just hanging on by a thread on a ventilator, hooked up to IV drips and all those heavy-duty meds to keep their blood pressure from bottoming out, and it’s wild how the body holds on. Even when things look terminal, you can have someone showing some semblance of heart, kidney, or liver function for five or six days before everything finally just shuts down for good.

After dinner—which was basically just us rotating through different spots only to end up staring at some mediocre, mushy mess on our plates—we headed back to the shock room. Our hospital coordinator started acting like some high-stakes military strategist, laying out the game plan for us. "Alright, listen up," he says, "those guys from the city said they’d roll in during their usual vampire hours, probably around 2:00 AM. So, nothing's happening before 3:00. We can tell the urologists and ophthalmologists to hang out here for a couple of hours while we wait for those other folks to finally wake up and get their act together."

Man, I just looked up and realized it’s almost 2 in the morning... honestly, the donor is holding steady for now, especially with those meds we talked about earlier keeping things under control.

"How’s it going?!" Dr. Hercules burst into the room looking absolutely stunned. "Don't tell me we're actually the first ones here?" Honestly, we were, and even the urologists and ophthalmologists hadn't even made an appearance yet. Dr. Hercules just laughed it off, joking that they must have somehow managed to snag a private jet out of nowhere to be running this late. We all ended up huddled together in the breakroom—just Herc, one of the junior docs, two scrub techs, and this massive perfusionist who stands at least 6'5"—just nursing some coffee that was steaming hot on the burner. Someone mentioned that they'd already checked in the recipient and got him prepped, so the poor guy is probably sitting in his room feeling pretty anxious while the professor and the transplant team are already geared up and ready to head into the OR.

The waiting room is absolutely packed today because the urologists showed up in full force—we're talking four or five doctors along with an equal number of surgical techs—and honestly, you could see the pure misery in their eyes. It was pretty obvious they’d all been ordered by the Chief to show up and pull duty instead of just staying home, but hey, what can you do when the boss gives an order like that?

So, you’ve got this ophthalmologist showing up with just one surgical assistant by his side, acting all humble about it... He actually had the nerve to say, "Oh, she's my favorite," which is just hilarious. But honestly, we all heard the gossip floating around the halls at Mayo Clinic anyway, so he wasn't exactly keeping any secrets.

So, we all sat there together and did one final, grueling sweep through that mountain of paperwork we’d been sweating over day and night—everything from the initial findings and deep-dive searches to the heavy stuff, like the brain death certification and the formal authorization for organ procurement.

Alright, we're rolling, the OR is all set up and ready to go... first the urologists will get in there, then the ophthalmologists, followed by the cardiac surgeons... we’re basically packing everything up one last time for the final haul straight to the surgical suite... once we arrive, the patient gets moved onto the table and hooked up to the anesthesia machine along with all the monitors.

Urologists tend to move at a bit of a slower pace during these procedures, mostly because they’re constantly pausing to walk you through what’s happening, clarifying details, and making sure you're actually following the important stuff... but once they finally wrap up all that explaining, they get down to business, handle the hemostasis, and close everything up.

The second the ophthalmologist walked through the door, he just went straight to work, diving right into those eyeballs and pulling both corneas out in no time at all.

The cardiac surgery crew always seems to be the last ones on the scene, but man, they move at lightning speed. They’ll fly through a sternotomy, open up the pericardium, prep all those major veins and arteries, clamp everything down, and then flush the heart with cardioplegia solution just to bring it to a standstill. Before you know it, they’ve cut the vessels, harvested the organ, packed it in some Wisconsin or Eurocolin solution, tucked it into the transport media with the rest of the organs, and closed up the chest—all in about thirty minutes flat. It's honestly wild to watch.

And that’s pretty much it.

You hear those ventilators, monitors, and perfusion pumps finally powering down, and once all the paperwork for the coroner and transport is squared away, the body is moved over to that Department.

After grabbing one last quick coffee together, the teams head out to get back to business, because organs—especially hearts—are on a strict deadline to reach the recipient. For instance, you’ve only got about a four or five-hour window to get a heart transplanted. They call in to confirm the organs have been harvested and they're en route, just so the surgical teams on the other end know everything is greenlit to start the transplant.

Jack Harris3 said:From what I gather, it’s actually the opposite.
If you sign up to be a donor, you get a donor card—you just keep that on you at all times...
But if you haven't signed anything, your family gets the final say on whether your organs can be used.
Otherwise, they aren't allowed to take them.
If they go ahead and do it anyway without the family knowing—like, say, if you pass away in a hospital setting—I honestly don't know how that works. 😁

it doesn't really work quite like that...

over here is a pretty detailed breakdown of the legal framework within the EU, if anyone's interested...

Jack Harris3 said:From what I gather, it’s actually the opposite.
If you sign up, you're essentially opting in and you get a donor card to carry around with you...
But if you haven't signed anything, your family can basically decide whether or not they want your organs to be used.
Otherwise, they aren't allowed to take them.
If they take them anyway and the family doesn't find out—like if you pass away in a hospital, for instance—well, I wouldn't know about that. 😁

Actually, no. Most countries in the EU follow an "opt-out" system where the family's permission isn't legally required...

That includes...

Sweden
USA
USA Austria
Belgium Spain
Belgium Spain
Italy Canada
Italy Canada
Canada
Finland France
Finland France
Luxembourg Norway
Luxembourg Norway
Greece Portugal
Greece Portugal

...but even then, regardless of what the law says, the custom is usually to check with the family first.

The countries where the family *has* to give consent are:
Germany
Ireland
Denmark Vel
Great Britain
Netherlands situation

As for how things work in the US or Australia, I think it's more of a personal choice where you have to explicitly state your wishes, and that's really all that matters. But I'm not an expert on the specifics there, so I won't go speculating too much.

Jack Harris3 said:As far as I know, it’s the opposite.
If you sign up to be a donor, you get a donor card that stays with you...
If you haven't signed anything, your family can decide whether or not to let your organs be used.
Otherwise, they aren't allowed to take them.
If the family goes ahead and they don't find out—say if you pass away in a hospital—I guess I don't know how that works. 😁

It isn't.
This topic was actually covered on the news, and Vojky dug up a list of countries where the laws are just like ours here in the States.
Basically, it applies to most developed EU nations.

Okay, I see Scott Allen10 already answered that.😬

thanks Scott Allen10

glad you laid out the reality on the ground so accurately

whenever I looked into organ donation, it was always the same old debate over legalities, consent, or whatever else

but seeing how things actually work in practice—even as a layman—it's clear nobody is just out there cutting corners. It takes
dedicated teams and massive amounts of expert labor just to pull this off. You can't just make something up and manipulate it on a whim

btw, what exactly do you do for a living?

Funny how they bypass all the younger candidates just to call up an old fossil... is he going to start singing like Arsen Dedić too?😬

So, what's the deal with all these younger folks? Like, do you actually have a handle on the ages of everyone in that group of 30 or 35 people sitting on the waiting list? Or maybe you know if there was someone else out there who was a much better match for the recipient based on the ABO and HLA compatibility systems?

Give us something substantial to work with instead of just spreading unverified rumors...

Ronald Lopez3 said:thanks Scott Allen10

I’m honestly so glad you laid out exactly what’s actually happening on the ground like that.

Every time I’d see a documentary or read something about organ donation, my mind would just spiral into all those legal gray areas, consent issues, and all that heavy stuff.

But seeing how things really work in practice—even as a total outsider—really puts things in perspective, and I truly believe nobody is out there cutting corners or being shady because you need
massive teams of specialists and an insane amount of coordinated effort just to make the process happen, let alone try to manipulate it.

btw, what do you actually do for a living? I'm curious!

....BLACK/CCN/....😁 😉 ....

cyanide said:Look, even if you're totally losing it, you saw what happened just fine.
And honestly? I’d tell everyone to go sign that opt-out paperwork immediately—get it done alongside me—before we all end up donating our organs by default. Because if people haven't realized it yet, this kind of policy is basically an invitation for a breeding ground of crime and doctors committing murder.
I don't even have to bring up organ trafficking. Imagine you get hit by a car, and then some doctor intentionally lets you slip away in the hospital just because you didn't sign the paper saying you *won't* donate your organs... and then they sell them to someone else.
I'm not saying every doctor is a thief, obviously, but don't act like those kinds of criminals don't exist out there.
Don't let anyone take your organs... sign that refusal right now so nobody gets their hands on your insides!

I have to admit, my mom falls for similar conspiracy theories (though she blames criminals instead of our own doctors) and she was pretty worked up when she heard about this law, but of course—since Americans can be so incredibly passive!—she didn't actually go down and sign anything to protest it...

The hypocrisy is unreal!! 😠

You’d honestly rather watch your own organs rot in the ground—let the worms have them—than lift a finger to help someone who actually needs it..

But heaven forbid you accept an organ transplant when your own life is hanging by a thread. 😈 😈 😈

MangoAnanas said:The hypocrisy here is staggering. 😠

You would all rather let your organs rot in the ground and feed the worms than lift a finger to help someone in need..

Yet, you’d be the first in line to demand a transplant if your own life were hanging by a thread. 😈 😈 😈

I'm with you on this. I'd love to see what these people would offer up if they suddenly needed an organ to stay alive!!!

Susan Martin24 said:I’m totally with you on that! I honestly wonder what those people would even say if they suddenly needed an organ just to stay alive!!!

They wouldn't just be talking about it—they'd grab it, mess things up, and then have themselves a little moral crisis over whether the person was actually dead or still breathing! 🤮

Did any of you catch Hillary Clinton on the news yesterday? I actually really liked this one point someone brought up—basically, if you sign a paper saying you don't want to be a donor, then you shouldn't get to refuse an organ if you end up needing one yourself. 😈
But, of course, most people jumped down her throat immediately... just total nonsense. 🙄