Organ Donor Death Raises Questions About Living Donation

ABC News

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Two years after 57-year-old Paul Hawks died during a seemingly routine organ donation operation his widow is drawing attention to the possible dangers of living organ donation as she plans to sue the clinic where he was treated.

Lorraine Hawks was married to her husband for nearly 36 years before he died while donating a portion of his liver to his brother-in-law in 2010 at the Lahey Clinic in Massachusetts. Hawks is planning to file a lawsuit against the clinic, which is affiliated with Tufts University, sometime in the next month.

“A donor, who is giving his liver to [his] brother-in-law, he dies. A donor [who] should not, did,” Hawks’ lawyer David Meyer told ABCNews.com.”The dangers associated with being a good Samaritan, I guess.”

According to a CNN report, Hawks became concerned about her husband’s treatment after receiving a Department of Public Health report that raised numerous red flags. Among Hawks’ concerns was the fact that her husband’s pre-operation EKG was abnormal, a high-speed blood pump in a nearby room was not used when he was bleeding out and the surgical team never activated a set of procedures called the “Massive Blood Transfusion Protocol.”
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