Cole Hartman arrived at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles, in serious condition. The heart of an 8-year-old boy did not beat after he almost drowned, accidentally being in a washing machine. The medical staff managed to restore the boy's heartbeat, but he remained in a coma and on artificial ventilation. Doctors of the pediatric intensive care unit of UCLA informed the child's family that because of oxygen starvation irreversible changes occurred in the brain, adding that he would never leave the coma. This is evidenced by records in the boy's medical record. Parents decided to disconnect Cole from the life support device and donate his organs. He was withdrawn from artificial ventilation, and after 23 minutes the anesthesiologist ascertained the death of the child. It would seem that a peaceful death 4 years ago is currently being investigated by the Los Angeles police and the district attorney's office. Investigators are looking for evidence that the anaesthesiologist injected Cole with a lethal dose of opioid fentanyl to hasten his death and increase the likelihood of his organ donation. At the moment, no charges have been brought against. An anesthesiologist's lawyer and Dr. Judith Brill, said that such a statement is "actually wrong and obviously offensive". This case is one of the few known criminal investigations against physicians associated with organ donation, and opens the window to a world of ethical issues, said forumdaily. Cole was born with Martin-Bell syndrome - a genetic anomaly that causes mental and physical disabilities and, as a rule, is manifested only in males. July 31, 2013, his father finished mowing the grass on the lawn and went home, where he found Cole, whose head was in a working washing machine. This is stated in the report of the pathologist and in the records of 911. According to parents, the head of Cole could stay in the water for up to 25 minutes. He was immediately taken by ambulance to the Santa Clarita Hospital, after which he was transported to Los Angeles by a medical helicopter. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the Hartmanns met Professor Brill. Honorary Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology and Operating Medicine in Los Angeles, 65-year-old Brill is considered an expert in the treatment of seriously injured children. She helped write state recommendations for pediatric intensive care and spent most of her free time on medical missions for the treatment of poor children in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She told Hartmannsam that the brain scan is "noticeably abnormal" and involves significant damage from lack of oxygen, according to the notes she made in Cole's schedule. The family "unanimously stated that they would prefer to give up support," and then decided to sacrifice the son's organs, wrote Brill. Since Cole's brain was not dead, and the organs could be removed only after that, his life support apparatus was shut down in accordance with a procedure known as donation after cardiac death or DCD. This type of donation began in the US in the mid-1990s, and is becoming more common in the last decade.

The DCD accounted for about 10% of dead donors last year. DCD failure may be due to lack of time. The organs can start to deteriorate immediately, and some of them become unsuitable for transplantation after 30 minutes. Cole was disconnected from the apparatus at 10:40, at which time the organ transplant team waited outside. It is known that immediately he did not stop breathing. About what happened next, it is not yet clear and the investigation is being conducted. UCLA declined to comment.