Helping someone else as a posthumous organ donor seems like a lovely final act.

In all the years I've been on the registry, I never once had second thoughts about it, knowing the actual harvesting

of any useful parts of me would happen after I die. But reading accounts of organ donors

moving, gasping, crying, even shaking their heads, no, just as surgeons closed in to remove their

organs for a waiting recipient, I will tell you, it stunned me.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

I had no idea this was a thing that could happen, but my guest has been tracking down

documented accounts of such cases, which seem to most often be associated with a once rare but increasingly common

organ procedure removal for removal. Brian M. Rosenthal is an investigative reporter at the New York Times.

He and his colleague Julie Tate wrote the article, A Push for More Organ Transplants is Putting Donors at

Risk. Brian, welcome back to think. Thanks for having me back.

So I have always known people, friends, who were apprehensive about signing up for any organ donor

registry out of this fear that somehow this would cause them to not receive optimum care

in the event of a life-threatening health crisis because, like, if they were allowed to die,

they worried their organs

would be transplanted faster to someone else.

I'll be honest with you.

I always thought people who were worried about this were worried about something that

would never happen, but maybe it can happen.

Well, I think the first and most important thing to say is that organ donation is a wonderful thing,

and it saves thousands of lives every year.

And most of the time, it goes off without any problem.

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