The investigation revealed a catalogue of errors in the handling of Ms Burns' case.

The drugs overdose had sent her into a deep coma, the state health department found, and hospital personnel misread that as irreversible brain damage without doing enough to evaluate her condition.

Furthermore, the day before her organs were to be removed, a nurse had performed a reflex test – scraping a finger on the bottom of her foot. The toes curled downward – not the expected reaction of someone who's supposed to be dead.

Outside the operating theatre, her nostrils appeared to show signs of breathing, and her lips and tongue moved.

"Dead people don't curl their toes," said Dr Charles Wetli, a forensic pathologist from New Jersey. "And they don't fight against the respirator and want to breathe on their own."

Twenty minutes after those observations were made, a nurse gave Burns an injection of the sedative Ativan, according to records.

In the doctors' notes, there's no mention of the sedative or any indication they were aware of her improving condition.

"If you have to sedate them or give them pain medication, they're not brain-dead and you shouldn't be harvesting their organs," said Dr David Mayer, a surgeon and an associate professor of clinical surgery at New York Medical College.

You would think all doctors would know what DEAD is. Scary. 

Do you know what you call a person who graduates from Med School with a D- average?

Doctor.