Resource Suicide and organ donation - a noble goal but unlikely scenario

[autumnal]

Having seen a few posts asking about this in regards to specific methods, I thought I would provide a general overview on the topic as I understand it.

Suicide and organ donation - a noble goal but unlikely scenario

A lot of people ask whether they can donate their organs after suicide. This is a noble goal, whether they be people who have always wanted to be organ donors (for any cause of death), or whether they have specifically started considering organ donation since becoming suicidal as a way to create something positive out of what can be a negative event.

The short answer is that there are not many suicide methods in which the body is still suitable for organ donation. There are two reasons for this, the medical and the legal.

Medically, the organs degrade and ultimately die after a certain period of time without oxygen. This period of time is very short. Due to this limited timeframe, the ideal conditions for organ donation involve you being in a hospital, already declared brain-dead but still being kept physically alive by machines. The living organs can then be harvested while you are still physically alive and so they are in the best condition and without oxygen for the shortest period of time between removal and transplant. The recipient of the organs will also be organised and schedules prepared down to the second so that they receive your organs as soon as possible.

Suicide, as a method (at least when successful) requires you to not be found and rescued for a certain period of time between the attempt and the moment of death. We typically achieve that by leaving a long enough delay between our planned time of death and the earliest possible time at which we could be discovered. That time buffer means our organs will almost never be able to be harvested due to their degradation and death.

Note that the delay inherent to suicide means that it is largely irrelevant whether certain specific methods affect our organs in a certain way or make them particularly 'unsuitable' for transplantation. Regardless of the condition they are in at the moment of death, it is the delays afterwards which always rule out transplantation rather than the particular method used.

Legally, most countries regard a suicide as an unexpected death and one that needs investigation. This could be to rule out the possibility of murder or other suspicious circumstances, or for more general reasons to establish the way in which death occurred and whether any coroners findings could help to identify and remove possible causes or hazards which may put others at similar risk in the future. Due to this requirement, once death is determined by first responders, the body will often need to be photographed at the scene, have forensic samples taken from it at the scene, be transported to a morgue and undergo examination, identification by forensic means or relatives, photography, toxicology and possibly even full autopsy. The long timeframe for these tasks occurring means the organs are always without oxygen for an extended period of time and are never suitable for harvesting. Note that the legal limitation is a purely practical one, it does not mean that there is a law against organ transplantation from suicides.

Suicidal people who would like to contribute something similarly positive as organ donation may instead consider:

• A living donation of an organ, although this is a long and complex process to undergo and there is no guarantee you will be found suitable.
  
  
• Leaving your body to science for research or teaching purposes, although this also has restrictions on delays between death and discovery due to the degradation of your body, although these are not quite as rigourous as for organ donation. There may also be limiting effects of the practical legal restrictions mentioned earlier. Additionally, some countries actually have more supply than demand for bodies and your body may not be accepted.
  
  
• Leaving your body to a body farm. These facilities study the effect on human remains of controlled environmental conditions. This knowledge then helps forensic science to learn what may have happened to other bodies. These facilities are rare outside of the US.
  
  
• Leaving money to charity, whether any kind of charity or one specific to supporting organ donation.
  

I hope this helps to explain these areas and can serve as a resource which reduces the number of unnecessary posts asking the same questions on this topic.

Disclaimer: some knowledge in both these areas but not a doctor or a lawyer.

 

[Marktheghost]

A living donation of an organ, although this is a long and complex process to undergo and there is no guarantee you will be found suitable.

Can I donate my liver or my heart, and commit suicide by donating an organ?

 

[Soul]

Can I donate my liver or my heart, and commit suicide by donating an organ?

No one would carry out the operation — probably not even shady dealers in black-market kidneys.

I once posted contact information for two organizations that coordinate whole-body donation. I'll try to locate that ...

Ta da!

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/threads/useful-contacts-for-body-disposal.16260/

And thank you @autumnal for another excellent article. x

 

[Proto]

These vultures aren't getting my organs anyways. They're not profiteering of my death lol

 

[autumnal]

These vultures aren't getting my organs anyways. They're not profiteering of my death lol

Profiteering how? Organs go to sick people who need them, and in most Western countries this is prioritised based on medical need rather than any kind of payment.

 

[Proto]

Profiteering how? Organs go to sick people who need them, and in most Western countries this is prioritised based on medical need rather than any kind of payment.

That, i didn't know... I just presumed it went to the highest bidder. Thanks for informing me, interesting!

 

[Quarky00]

I think this is a good addition to this resource. Giving simple confirmation based on some practical accounts.

TLDR: Basically no chance of organ donation, but cornea and valves.

Here's what I found from a group that lost family members to suicide and considered organ donation. A few who hanged and a few gunshot to the head were either still alive when found or were resusitated. After being determined to be brain dead, they were able to donate organs. Other donations, for those who died, included eyes, skin, bones, valves and tendons. In one case, the young man called the hospital, shot himself in the parking lot and they were still too late for his organs.

 

[esoragoto]

From my time in college a few years back, all I can say that donating your body to science is not an elegant alternative. A lesson in my anatomy class involved observing the body of someone who had donated their body to science - heavily shriveled up and disfigured due to the formaldehyde, particularly the face which was kept covered with a cloth most of the time. Completely naked, hairy groin openly displayed for the faculty and students to see. The abdomen cut open in several sections, which the instructor would open as flaps of flesh to allow us to see the internal organs. We were encouraged but not required to press/lightly squeeze parts of the body (with gloves of course) to observe the response. The room was a specially ventilated room presumably designed for this sort of thing, but the smell of the body/formaldehyde was still nearly overwhelming, even after putting our face masks on.

Donating your body to science doesn't necessarily mean it gets used by scientists in experiments to cure diseases. That's probably exceedingly rare, actually. I think if more people took anatomy classes, a lot less people would donate their bodies to science.

 

[autumnal]

From my time in college a few years back, all I can say that donating your body to science is not an elegant alternative. A lesson in my anatomy class involved observing the body of someone who had donated their body to science - heavily shriveled up and disfigured due to the formaldehyde, particularly the face which was kept covered with a cloth most of the time. Completely naked, hairy groin openly displayed for the faculty and students to see. The abdomen cut open in several sections, which the instructor would open as flaps of skin to allow us to see the internal organs. We were encouraged but not required to press/lightly squeeze parts of the body (with gloves of course) to observe the response. The room was a specially ventilated room presumably designed for this sort of thing, but the smell of the body/formaldehyde was still nearly overwhelming, even after putting our face masks on.

Donating your body to science doesn't necessarily mean it gets by scientists in experiments to cure diseases. That's probably exceedingly rare, actually. I think if more people took anatomy classes, a lot less people would donate their bodies to science.

To be fair, I don't think many (if any) people are under the impression that donating your body to science is somehow an 'elegant alternative'. From both common sense and portrayals in television/movies, most (if not all) people would be aware that cadaver work involves preserved and/or deteriorated bodies, strong smells and obvious nudity, as well as dissection to facilitate inspection of internal structures and organs and the touching and removal of these.

I would have assumed that 'if more people took anatomy classes', they would more greatly appreciate the importance of donating bodies to science, and be more likely to donate themselves,. This is especially the case if they were taking anatomy classes to further their learning and careers in science or medicine (as distinct to a hypothetical layperson simply taking an anatomy class outside of any other context).

 

[laserfocus111]

From my time in college a few years back, all I can say that donating your body to science is not an elegant alternative. A lesson in my anatomy class involved observing the body of someone who had donated their body to science - heavily shriveled up and disfigured due to the formaldehyde, particularly the face which was kept covered with a cloth most of the time. Completely naked, hairy groin openly displayed for the faculty and students to see. The abdomen cut open in several sections, which the instructor would open as flaps of flesh to allow us to see the internal organs. We were encouraged but not required to press/lightly squeeze parts of the body (with gloves of course) to observe the response. The room was a specially ventilated room presumably designed for this sort of thing, but the smell of the body/formaldehyde was still nearly overwhelming, even after putting our face masks on.

Donating your body to science doesn't necessarily mean it gets used by scientists in experiments to cure diseases. That's probably exceedingly rare, actually. I think if more people took anatomy classes, a lot less people would donate their bodies to science.

I too changed my mind after a year of anatomy class.

 

[esoragoto]

To be fair, I don't think many (if any) people are under the impression that donating your body to science is somehow an 'elegant alternative'. From both common sense and portrayals in television/movies, most (if not all) people would be aware that cadaver work involves preserved and/or deteriorated bodies, strong smells and obvious nudity, as well as dissection to facilitate inspection of internal structures and organs and the touching and removal of these.

I would have assumed that 'if more people took anatomy classes', they would more greatly appreciate the importance of donating bodies to science, and be more likely to donate themselves,. This is especially the case if they were taking anatomy classes to further their learning and careers in science or medicine (as distinct to a hypothetical layperson simply taking an anatomy class outside of any other context).

Prior to that class, I assumed "donating your body to science" had a much more concrete, positive impact on the world. I won't say that there's no value in using a cadaver for teaching purposes, but looking at that body wasn't really any more helpful to my learning about how everything in the body fits together than looking at plastic anatomical models - I'd argue that the models were actually more helpful due to being clearly labelled and often sectioned off with colors...to say nothing of the psychological and sensory (olfactory) distractions of trying to learn from a real cadaver. I don't think it was a significant help to my peers, either. I suppose someone probably got some educational benefit, but in my opinion the benefits to the world vs having your body end up in that state don't scale out very well.

 

[laserfocus111]

Prior to that class, I assumed "donating your body to science" had a much more concrete, positive impact on the world. I won't say that there's no value in using a cadaver for teaching purposes, but looking at that body wasn't really any more helpful to my learning about how everything in the body fits together than looking at plastic anatomical models - I'd argue that the models were actually more helpful due to being clearly labelled and often sectioned off with colors...to say nothing of the psychological and sensory (olfactory) distractions of trying to learn from a real cadaver. I don't think it was a significant help to my peers, either. I suppose someone probably got some educational benefit, but in my opinion the benefits to the world vs having your body end up in that state don't scale out very well.

To make things worse:

The real life anatomy looks nothing like the preserved cadavers you see in school. I had to re orientate myself with videos of actual surgeries to know what I was looking at during work.

Not all donated cadavers end up being involved in Nobel prize winning research. Most end up as preserved sectioned specimens for basic teaching and research. That's when I decided.. Nope.

 

[Tamazi 123]

Due to this limited timeframe, the ideal conditions for organ donation involve you being in a hospital, already declared brain-dead but still being kept physically alive by machines. The living organs can then be harvested while you are still physically alive and so they are in the best condition and without oxygen for the shortest period of time between removal and transplant. The recipient of the organs will also be organised and schedules prepared down to the second so that they receive your organs as soon as possible.

This is what we were able to do on behalf of my mother when she CTB. My brother found her still warm but no pulse, gave her CPR for 20mins before the paramedics arrived and did the same and eventually got a heartbeat using the paddles. We had to go through 72hrs of no improvement and then 4hrs of testing to prove brain death. They left her on life support until the next day when the organ retrieval team could come and do their thing. They were extremely caring and let us walk her bed through to theater and then got her all dressed up looking nice so we could sit with her afterwards. She was a nurse and had always been adamant that she wanted to be a donor. It gave my brother great solace that he was able to make that possible even though he didn't make it in time to save her life. I don't know why I felt the need to share all of that, just that it was very rare to be able to happen.

 

[Kumachan]

some ideas/threads on this forum appear with surprising regularity and organ donation is one of them for some reason. Not the most popular tho

 

[autumnal]

some ideas/threads on this forum appear with surprising regularity and organ donation is one of them for some reason. Not the most popular tho

I think it's the desire to create some positive aspects to what is viewed as an event having generally negative effects on others.

 

[Kumachan]

I think it's the desire to create some positive aspects to what is viewed as an event having generally negative effects on others.

Right, it never crossed my mind... I just couldnt care less about the after-effects already tbh. Just want out.