The wife of a man who was declared brain dead says he began showing signs of neurological activity just minutes before his organs were set to be harvested for donation.
North Carolina pastor Ryan Marlow was in the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for two weeks, suffering from listeria. His wife, Megan, said in a Facebook livestream that doctors told her on August 27 that her husband was "clinically deceased".
The condition of the 37-year-old dad of three had worsened after he sustained swelling to his brain and had a "neurological death".
Megan was told that Ryan, an organ donor, would be kept on life support during the process of locating lung, heart, and liver recipients.
As Ryan's family gathered to say goodbye to him on August 30, Megan said she was almost unable to see him off at the hospital in Winston-Salem.
"My heart could not bare it," she said during the livestream.
When she arrived, she was informed by a niece that her husband had moved his feet while he was shown videos of his kids. She went on to say that a doctor then told her that a CT scan had shown signs of brain activity.
"Because of his rare circumstance, they called in an expert panel and discovered that they made a mistake and that my husband, in fact, did not pass away," she continued.
“Literally the (organ removal) team was waiting there to take him... and I tell the nurse ‘stop everything right now’,” she said.
Megan was told that he had still sustained a severe brain stem injury and that he remained in critical condition in a deep coma.
She said: “Long story short... he’s not brain dead, my friends. He’s not brain dead. God’s kept him here. He’s supposed to be dead, he’s supposed to be at the funeral home right now according to these doctors.”
Since the scan, Ryan has had an elevated heart rate and twitches, but his condition remains delicate.
The doting wife said that Duke University Hospital had agreed to take her husband, and she was in contact with the medical director about her husband's transferral. In an update on Thursday, she added that the plan to move him had been delayed.
