We are currently receiving inquiries about a boy who was considered brain dead and woke up shortly before organ removal - specifically, it's about Trenton McKinley.
From brain death back to life – the most important thing to start with:
- 13-year-old Trenton McKinley was said to be brain dead and woke up shortly before organ donation.
- Trenton McKinley was in a coma after an accident. The doctors suggested organ donation to the boy's mother, but shortly before the second diagnosis of brain death, the 13-year-old woke up again.
- The case happened in spring 2018 in Albama, USA. However, the final examination to diagnose brain death was not carried out at all.
In the spring of 2018, the story of Trenton McKinley was all over the media. According to media reports, the then 13-year-old American was considered “brain dead” after an accident.
His mother signed her consent for organ removal because doctors assumed the boy would not survive. Shortly before the removal, the boy showed signs of consciousness - was the 13-year-old really brain dead?
The fact check
In March 2018, 13-year-old Trenton McKinley suffered an accident in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He was riding in a trailer pulled by a buggy. The boy hit his head on the concrete floor and was buried by the trailer. His skull suffered fractures in seven places.
After Trenton was hospitalized, his mother, Jennifer Reindl Banks, created a Facebook page to raise funds. On March 22, 2018, she posted a post saying that Trenton " went into surgery twice and died on the table four times. Once for 15 minutes. ... His heart was only beating due to the adrenaline and even then his vitals were 40 over 20 and his body temperature was 81 [degrees Fahrenheit = 27 C°; Editor's note] …..they said the next time his heart stopped they would have to let him die.”
Doctors then suggested that she sign a “paper” to donate his organs and save five other children. “They would keep pumping him full of adrenaline until Monday” . She signed off on the organ removal because she “knew he [Trenton] wouldn’t hesitate to save five more lives .
The very next day she received a phone call from the hospital, “ the final EEG” was canceled. “Just before they were about to perform the extraction, his hand and foot moved. … They said no one had ever returned from complete death of the brain stem and heart.”
Details on brain death diagnosis
Quarks , there are always doubts and inconsistencies in the diagnosis of brain death. Not only Trenton made headlines, but also the Briton Steven Thorpe, who started studying four years after being diagnosed with brain death.
But in December 2014, doctors canceled a planned organ removal from a woman because they suddenly noticed errors in the protocol for diagnosing brain death. It later emerged that the woman was actually brain dead.
This raises the question, how certain is a diagnosis of brain death?
On the one hand, the concepts differ from country to country. If in Great Britain someone is already considered brain dead if the brain stem no longer functions, in Germany and America it must be proven that the entire brain has irretrievably failed (irreversible brain function loss).
This also includes the sensation of pain and consciousness, which lies in the cerebral cortex and can still be fully functional even if the brain stem fails.
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The administration of medication or body temperature can also make a diagnosis more difficult or distorted. In addition, a second doctor would have had to confirm the initial diagnosis of brain death, but this did not happen because the boy suddenly regained consciousness.
What does the regulation for determining brain death actually look like?
The rules were determined by a commission of experts from the German Medical Association :
The determination of irreversible brain function loss takes place in three stages: According to both the current and the updated guidelines, the prerequisite is the unequivocal proof of acute, severe primary or secondary brain damage and the exclusion of reversible causes. In a second step, all clinical symptoms of failure required by the guidelines must be demonstrated. The irreversibility of the clinical symptoms of failure must then be confirmed. The certainty of determining death is based on this procedure.
One of the two doctors who carries out the brain death examination must be a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Someone is only considered brain dead if at least two doctors repeat and confirm the examination with an interval of several hours to days. The doctors have to check very carefully whether the potential organ donor is still breathing independently or reacting to pain stimuli, among other things.
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Also interesting: Some doctors consider the term “brain dead” to be incorrect. For them, brain dead people are not really dead, but rather “irretrievably dying people”.
You can find more information on the topic in the Quarks .
Conclusion:
According to the regulations of the German Medical Association, three steps and at least two independent doctors are necessary for an absolute determination - this was not the case with Trenton, as he showed signs of consciousness before the second determination.
Strictly speaking, in Trenton's case, the term "brain dead" would also have to be put in quotation marks in the reporting, since the doctors assumed it at the time, but the diagnosis had not yet been fully completed.
Brain dead or not, the only thing that matters to Trenton and his family is that he woke up at all after such severe skull injuries.
Information: In an earlier version of the article, the phrase "drooling vegetables" referred to a passage mentioned in the video. The doctors told Trenton's mother that her son "will be a vegetable" - Trenton himself says "Do I look like a vegetable?"
In keeping with the topic: Protecting children online! Federal Ministry decides on harsher penalties.
Further sources: gofundme , organ donation wiki , DiePresse , BBC , CBS News , MedScape
Photo credit: Jennifer Reindl Banks
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Notes:
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