As Sim Tee Hua lay on life support in a Singapore hospital, seven of his relatives knelt crying on the floor before the doctors, begging them not to remove his organs and give him a chance for a miracle recovery.
Their desperate pleas were to no avail and after police and hospital security staff were called in to restrain them, Mr Sim, 43, was rolled away to the operating theatre to expire.
"The hospital staff were running as they wheeled him out of the back door of the room," said Sim Chew Hiah, one of his sisters. "They were behaving like robbers."
The previously healthy lorry driver was already brain-dead after suffering a stroke at work, followed by a cerebral haemorrhage in Singapore General Hospital. The harvesting surgeons had waited for 24 hours, but although his family still clung to hopes that he could recover, Singaporean law assumes all citizens except Muslims are willing organ donors unless they have explicitly opted out.
Mr Sim's parents have been offered reduced hospital fees for five years, and the family have been sent a letter thanking them for their "generous organ donation".
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