> Dr. Robert Cannon, a transplant surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, described a similar incident during the congressional hearing where Martin’s letter was disclosed. It happened at a hospital outside of Alabama.<p>> “We actually were in the operating room. We had actually opened the patient and were in the process of sort of preparing their organs, at which point the ventilator triggered and so the anesthesiologist at the head of the table spoke up and said, ‘Hey, I think this patient might have just breathed,’” Cannon later told NPR in an interview. “If the patient breathes, that means they’re not brain dead.”<p>> Nevertheless, a representative from the OPO wanted to proceed anyway, Cannon says. He refused.<p>> “We were kind of shocked that an OPO person would have so little knowledge about what brain death means that they would say, ‘Oh, you should just go ahead.’ And we thought, ‘No. We’re not going to take any risk that we murder a patient.’ Because that’s what it would be if that patient was alive.”<p>OPO should be charged with attempted homicide.