Jennifer Reindl signed the papers, believing her son would never come back.
Trenton McKinley was 13 when a utility trailer overturned and hit him in the head in Mobile, Alabama. He suffered seven skull fractures, several craniotomies, kidney failure, and cardiac arrest. According to his mother, he “died” in the operating room for about 15 minutes.
After the surgeries, doctors declared him brain-dead. They told the family that his organs were a match for five children who needed transplants. Reindl agreed, and Trenton was kept alive “just to harvest his organs”, she recalled to CBS News.
One day before they were going to take him off life support and give him the final brain-wave test, his vital signs suddenly spiked. They canceled the exam. Today, he walks, talks, reads, and does math exercises. He still has pain and seizures, and will need surgery to reimplant a piece of his skull that doctors are keeping frozen.
Trenton says that while he was unconscious, he was walking straight across an open field. “There is no other explanation than God”, he said.