A teenage boy has woken up just a day before he was due to have vital organs removed.

A 13-year-old American boy has regained consciousness after his parents had agreed to have life support turned off and his organs donated.

Trenton Mckinley from Mobile, Alabama, was in a comatose state after suffering severe head injuries when he was hit on the head by a flipped trailer. The boy had undergone several craniotomy surgeries, but had suffered kidney failure and cardiac arrest, and doctors believed that he would “never be normal again”. Doctors had talked to the family about donating five of Trenton’s organs that suited five other children, and the family had agreed to have the organs donated.

Yet just a day before he was due to have his life-support turned off, the boy began to regain consciousness. While he is still recovering gross motor skills and will need several operations to repair his fractured skill, Trenton is now able to communicate without trouble and has even been making jokes with reporters. The boy told reporters that he was in heaven while he was unconscious. “I was in an open field walking straight,” he said. “There's no other explanation but God. There's no other way. Even doctors said it”.

13 year old regains consciousness after parents sign organ donation forms
Xavier Symons
Creative commons
https://www.bioedge.org/images/2008images/trenton.jpg
death
organ donation
us
vital organ procurement

• Author
• Recent Posts

Xavier Symons

Xavier Symons is a bioethicist and scholar in residence at the Kennedy Institute for Ethics at Georgetown University.

Latest posts by Xavier Symons (see all)

• Can machines be moral? - March 7, 2021
• Can we synthesise Christianity moral theology with secular bioethics? - November 28, 2020
• Euthanasia polling data may fail to capture people’s considered views - August 15, 2020