I was watching the L&O episode with the man who had his kidney stolen, and I wondered has that ever really happen? I’d imagine it’s happened in 3rd World countries with the victim winding up dead. If it did happended could the court order the stolen organ removed from the recipient and returned to it’s rightful owner?
I would think not, because you can’t just pick a random person and take their organ and have it work. It has to be a good match, or the organ will be quickly rejected. I can’t imagine thugs going around abducting people and doing HLA typing on them.
According to Snopes, no.
On the show it was some rich guy getting info from a medical laboratory to find a match for his daughter.
According to Cecil it may have happened. Sort of. More or less. Not quite like in the urban legends, though.
Ah, I see that the same story is also mentioned in the Snopes article, and debunked. Sorry, carry on.
In the story, the people who steal the kidneys are skilled professionals who, at least, use ‘sterile instruments’. Presumably they’d also use anesthetics and be able to safely maintain anesthesia, because I don’t think you could perform surgery on someone who had just passed out from something in their drink. Despite being skilled professionals, though, they never bother to suture the incisions they make – the person always regains consciousness in an ice-filled bathtub with open wound(s) in their back. The compatibility issue is a problem, and presumably they don’t bother to check.
If they’re stealing an organ for a specific person who needs one, the organ theives would have to steal hundreds of kidneys from different people until they find a match. (Presumably they would be able to sell the organs that don’t match – the story claims that there’s a large black market in human organs.)
The story is false, and Snopes has everything you’d need to know it’s not true. One other thing I just wondered – when a donor’s kidneys are removed, is the incision made on the front or back of the body? In the urban legend, the incision(s) are always on the back, so that the victim won’t be aware of what has happened at first (waking up to a ‘call 911 or you will die’ sign is much more disturbing to waking up to finding an incision in your abdomen right away). It seems that the wounds are on the victim’s back primarily so that they will not be aware of what has happened until they, depending on the version, call 911 or stand up and see the wounds in a mirror. It’s one of the elements that makes the story scarier and more believable – and thus less likely to be true – so I’m wondering if kidneys are actually removed through the back. (The line that says a phone is conveniently placed next to the bathtub is another one that makes the story seem more believable - it prevents the reader from thinking ‘i’ve never been in a hotel room with a phone next to the bathtub. how could the person call 911 if there’s no phone?’)