Surgeons tried to harvest LIVING father's organs and ignored his doctor's pleas to leave him alone
A Missouri surgeon was moments away from harvesting a living man's organs - but the helpless patient's doctor intervened just in time.
Larry Black was on his way to his sister's apartment when he was shot in the head on March 24, 2019. He was just 22 years old.
Just a week after the harrowing ordeal, the young man was being rolled into an operating room at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital to have his organs removed.
But his doctor, Zohny Zohny, never declared Black brain dead, and his heart was still beating.
It was only his first year on the job when the then-34-year-old doctor heard his patient was on the operating table without his go-ahead. He did not hesitate to take action.
'The worst-case scenario for me is that I lose my job,' Zohny recalled his thought process to KFF Health News.
'Worst-case scenario for him, he wrongfully loses his life.'
Zohny stormed the operating room and told the surgeon to stop what they were doing. Black's chest and abdomen were bare.
Larry Black (pictured) was on his way to his sister's apartment when he was shot in the head on March 24, 2019. He was just 22 years old
But his doctor, Zohny Zohny (pictured), never declared Black brain dead, and his heart was still beating
'This is my patient. Get him off the table,' Zohny asserted. 'I don’t care if we have consent [from his family].
'I haven’t spoken to the family, and I don’t agree with this. Get him off the table.'
Black was returned to the intensive care unit (ICU). He woke up two days later.
Now 28 years old, Black has three children and is pursuing a music career - living a fulfilling life that was moments away from being robbed from him.
When Black was shot more than six years ago, he was a registered organ donor - a status he has since changed.
His sister, Macquel Payne, was the one who found him bleeding out on the ground.
He told Macquel not to worry about him. She said he told her: 'I’m good, sis. I'm okay.'
Black told KFF he remembers going in and out of consciousness on the bone-chilling ambulance ride to the hospital.
Once he arrived at the ICU, he said he started hitting the side of his bed to alert his family and doctors that he was still there.
Just a week after the harrowing instance of gun violence, the young man was being rolled into an operating room at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital (pictured) to have his organs removed
Molly Watts (left) said Black's (right) medical team started treating the family differently once they agreed to donate his organs
'[The staff] was like, "That’s just the reaction, the side effects of the medicine. Ask him some questions."'
Macquel asked him to blink twice if he could remember his first pet, which he did, according to him and his sister.
The panicked sister then asked the heartbreaking question that no one wants to ask a loved one.
'If you want them to pull a plug, if you tired and you giving up, blink once,' she asked, Black recalled.
'If you still got some fight in you, blink more than once.'
Black said he replied by blinking repeatedly and slamming his hand into the bed once again, but employees allegedly told his family these movements were involuntary.
His relatives told KFF they felt pressured by hospital staff to consent to the organ harvesting procedure that would have ended his life.
Black's sister, Macquel Payne, said while she and her mother were sitting in the intensive care unit's waiting room, a woman had approached them with brochures about organ donations.
Zohny said Black's family would not have consented to the organ harvesting if they knew his true state (pictured from left to right: Zohny, Black and Watts in 2019)
'I remember my mom saying, "Not right now. It’s kind of too soon,"' Macquel recalled.
Yet, the woman allegedly would not take no for an answer, explaining several lives would be saved if Black forgoes his organs.
Black's family, although doubtful that he was truly gone, understood that these donations save lives.
The gunshot victim's younger brother, Miguel Payne, had passed away from drowning years prior, and he had been a donor.
'I believe in saving lives,' Macquel told the outlet. 'But don't be pushy about it.'
Macquel and Black's other sister, Molly Watts, told KFF that once the family made the tough call to consent to the organ donation, Black's medical team started acting standoffish toward them.
'In my opinion, no family would ever consent to organ donation unless they were given an impression that their family member had a very poor prognosis,' Zohny said.
Just before the hospital prepared for his Honor Walk - when hospital staff line up along the hall to show respect for an organ donor's life - Macquel asked doctors to evaluate her brother one more time.
She recalled telling them she saw him tapping on the bed just moments before, but she was allegedly told it was just his nerves.
But Macquel said she knew something was wrong.
Macquel Payne (pictured) said she knew something was wrong when her brother was being rolled to the operating room
She said: 'He was letting us know: "Please don’t let them do this to me. I’m here. I can fight this."'
Chilling video from Black being rolled down the hospital hall shows his eyes half rolled open.
After Zohny heroically stopped the surgery, he said a hospital worker who returned Black to the ICU said they were 'so glad [he] stopped that.'
The worker allegedly said: 'His eyes were open the whole time, and I just felt like he was looking at me. His eyes didn’t move, but it felt like he was looking at me.’
Black woke up days later. He was speaking almost immediately and was walking within a week.
'I had to learn how to walk, how to spell, read,' Black, who stayed a total of 21 days in the hospital, told KFF. 'I had to learn my name again, my Social, birthday, everything.'
'It’s a miracle that despite flawed policy we were able to save his life,' Zohny, who left the hospital shortly after Black's case, said.
Mid-America Transplant’s CEO and president, Kevin Lee, wrote in an August blog post: 'In every case, the patient must be declared legally dead by the hospital’s medical team before organ procurement begins. This is not negotiable.'
Black (pictured in 2018) was just 22-years-old when he was shot in the head
Mid-America Transplant is the federally designated organ procurement organization serving the St. Louis region.
He clarified in a statement to KFF that there are two ways a patient can be pronounced legally dead.
The first is if their heart stops beating and they stop breathing. The second is if their brain has stopped functioning. Neither of these cases applied to Black.
KFF, Zohny and LJ Punch, a former trauma surgeon who was not involved with the case, all reviewed Black's medical records.
No one could pinpoint what led to Black being okayed to undergo organ removal.
Punch wondered if the circumstances surrounding Black's traumatic injury factored into how his case was mishandled.
Young black men are disproportionately victimized by gun violence. Punch said Black's experience exemplifies 'the general neglect' of black men's bodies.
'Structurally, not individually. Not any one doctor, not any one nurse, not any one team. It’s a structural reality,' Punch said.
Now 28 years old, Black (pictured in 2019) has three children and is pursuing a music career - living a fulfilling life that was moments away from being robbed from him
SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital has declined to comment on the details of Black's case.
Black's troubling story has come to light as a federal investigation into a Kentucky organ donation nonprofit determined that medical providers harvested the organs of 73 patients despite signs of neurological activity over the course of four years.
'Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying,' Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement.
'The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.'
