'Miracle': Navy vet declared brain dead wakes just before organ donation

A Florida family is celebrating a miracle, as Navy veteran Ethan Preseau, 28, woke up after a declaration of brain death and an 'honor walk' just prior to a planned organ donation.

Key Takeaways:

• Ethan Preseau was moving items into his new home when his girlfriend realized he had been outside for too long. She found him unresponsive on the ground.

• The hospital said Ethan, though breathing on his own, was brain dead.

• His family asked for 10 days before life support was turned off. They planned his funeral and planned to donate his organs.

• On day 10, the nurses disconnected his life support, but Ethan didn't die. Instead, he woke up.

The Details:

In early June, Ethan Preseau and his girlfriend, Piper Wade, were moving into their new home in Pensacola, when Ethan went to get suitcases from the truck. When he didn't return, Wade went to check on him and found him lying unresponsive on the ground.

"You don't want to see someone that you love in that state," Wade told ABC 3. "So I just freaked out and I immediately — I don't know CPR, but I understand what it is, so I tried to do that for a second. But I realized I don't know what I'm doing, so I ran inside as fast as possible and I called 911 and they were there so fast. Maybe in like 30 seconds they were there."

At the hospital, Ethan was put on life support and doctors learned he had an infection in his heart. He was breathing on his own, but doctors declared him brain dead.

'Miracle': Pensacola Navy vet declared brain dead awakens days before funeral

"When they did the brain MRI, the MRI showed that the thalamus was black and dead. So we had absolutely no hope," said Ethan's stepmother, Denice Preseau.

Wade asked that they give him a chance — at least 10 days before removing life support.

According to GoFundMe, "Per his previous request, Ethan’s organ donation was set up. The one caveat being that they could only use his donation if his heart stopped within an hour of being unplugged."

"It's not supposed to be the father burying the child," said Ethan's father, Jeffrey Preseau. "It's supposed to be the other way around."

His family planned his funeral and on day 10, the nurses, staff, and family lined up for Preseau's honor walk, a tradition carried out for patients declared brain dead who are donating their organs.

After the honor walk, nurses presented his family with an American flag for his service and then removed Ethan's life support and allowed his family to say their final goodbyes. The family then went to take a walk on the beach. As they walked, the phone rang. It was the hospital.

As the family rushed back into his room, Ethan followed his father with his eyes, turned his head, and smiled.

"When we walked in and saw that, I immediately got the nurse. ... And he's like, 'Well, maybe he's just doing this movement, you know, from this and that,'" his father said, adding:

"And it was so funny. He came in. He's like, 'Ethan, Ethan, stick your tongue out for me.' And he goes and stuck his tongue out and he turned and looked at me and his eyes was the size of silver dollars. And he's like, 'Hold on, I got to go get two nurses to witness this.' So the two nurses he got were two of the nurses that did the honor walk with us. And they came in, asked him the same thing, stick out his tongue, and they started crying. They're like, 'Oh my gosh, this is a miracle.'

The one doctor did say, 'I can definitely see this in the medical books in the future because they're all baffled. I mean the doctors are baffled, the nurses are baffled... he's doing his commands and stuff and it's just, it's unbelievable. I mean, everybody that walks in, the chaplain walked in and she was like, 'This is a miracle.' It's nothing short of a miracle that my son is coming back out of this."

Ethan will be transferred to a rehab facility for people with traumatic brain injuries, but he is smiling, laughing at jokes, and using sign language to communicate. His family has set up a GoFundMe to help cover the expense for his rehabilitation.

Why It Matters:

There is a great deal of controversy over the idea of brain death and what that means and looks like. Ethan is not the only person to wake up and recover after being declared brain dead.

In response to the existing confusion surrounding brain death, in 2020, Texas Right to Life released a brief, informative video including three questions that concerned family members can ask hospital staff in the event of discussions about a loved one being brain dead:

1. “Is there any activity or function in his or her brain stem?”

2. “Has a blood flow study been run?”

3. “Have the test results been assessed by a neurologist?”

American Life League notes, “If [brain death] were identical and equivalent to death, why would it be necessary to coin a new term?”

The pro-life group argues, “Death is the total cessation of all brain activity, including the brain stem, combined with the cessation of cardiopulmonary functions. Neither the cessation of brain activity nor the cessation of cardiopulmonary functions alone is sufficient. A person is either truly dead or he is still living. The 'brain death' diagnosis indicates that, in fact, the patient is not actually dead.”