FDNY Rolling Out Emergency Organ Harvest Vehicle

The FDNY is hiring EMTs to man a new "Organ Preservation Vehicle" that will race around Manhattan to make sure fewer organs go to waste. Starting next month, the $1.5 million pilot program will dispatch two EMTs, a "family services coordinator" and a doctor to the scene of accidents or cardiac arrests. If the next of kin consents, after attempts to resuscitate the decedent have failed they'll keep the "potential organ donor" on a ventilator and rush him or her to Bellevue Medical Center to remove the organs.

Officials insist this won't get in the way of NYPD homicide investigations, and a spokesman for the department says, "These people may have wanted to be an organ donor, but there is currently no system in place to have this occur. We're very excited about this new, cooperative plan that will allow us to do even more to honor organ donors' wishes and save more lives."

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By John Del Signore in News on October 25, 2010 2:55 PM

Comments [rss]

JenChungsBaby

Abby Normal

cronegirl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzMTabOTu4Y&feature=fvsr

youngpro

i worked on a harvest team in college and for a year after. it is not what you think as chasing an ambulance, but i dont like the idea of a team whose sole purpose is to preserve organs going around to accident scenes and push the families into consenting. i used to get (literally) pushed by the higher-ups to get a family into consenting. standard operating procedure for the hospital was tha ALL patients were candidates until ruled out by other factors.

and hopefully the hatzollah will not be among the team members.

Erk

that's pretty screwed up. disregarding that, I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea... could save way more lives, not that we're running out of people or anything.

plus, what about the donor sticker, isn't that the go-by?

fuboy

So, this is like ambulance chasing lawyers, only instead of trying to get me to sue, they're coming for my kidneys. If there is no next of kin on-site, will they automatically 'harvest' my organs?

No, this isn't creepy.

MEDICNYC

If you bothered to read the linked article you would have read the part where it says: "With the next of kin's consent, they may keep the 'potential organ donor' on a ventilator and take him or her to Bellevue Medical Center."