Yeah... The story is bullshit. The kid wasn't diagnosed as brain dead. How do I know? Because nobody, ever, has been diagnosed as brain dead following the AAN guidelines for determining brain death, and not in fact been brain dead. Far more likely, they were doing a temporary removal of support as part of the clincal evaluation. Given that the patient recovered - he wouldn't have passed the clinical evaluation to be determined brain dead and they would have resumed support.

I'm guessing that the drunk asshole with the gun didn't understand those facts, and decided that the responsible path forward as a parent, was threatening the lives of his ex wife, his other son, the nurse and any patients in the vicinity not adequately sheltered from stray fire was much more appropriate.

They may well have been proceeding with that path because Ancillary testing suggested brain death and angry drunk and shooty may well have not followed those facts through very well. But no American hospital declares a patient brain dead without following the standards. The lawsuits would be astronomical and the professionals involved would lose their licensing. If Drunky the kid and his itchy trigger finger had been able to establish in court that the hospital had failed to follow the AAN guidelines for determining brain death prior to attempting to withdraw life support - he'd have enough money from the law suit to never work again. Record keeping around those declarations is super robust to avoid not only needlessly killing patients, but hospital and doctor bankrupting lawsuits, and other medical professionals are very unlikely to cover for a coworker who fucked something like that up. For the most part - they're both very motivated by patient outcomes and protecting their own careers, and will happily throw someone who makes a fuckup like that under the bus.