Published 11/16/2006 :: The Sun News

Personal Decision Saves Lives

Organ donation wins a following

By JANELLE FROST, The Sun News

Nicole Carroll helped set up a "students against drunk drivers" program at her high school.

Then, in 1999, she died in a car wreck involving a drunken driver. Roughly two years earlier, when she was 16, Carroll had become an organ donor, according to Woody Crosby, the man who later received her liver.

Crosby said her decision ultimately saved his life when doctors said transplant was his only option.

The experience helped him realize the need to increase organ donations, something Grand Strand Regional Medical Center has done effectively for at least the past two years, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Crosby waited for a liver for more than a year. Many people don't make it that long, he said.

"There are 15 to 16 people a day that die waiting for an organ transplant," said Crosby, president and CEO of Jordan Properties, which operates more than 600 rooms at the Crown Reef Resort and Tropical Seas.

Nearly 94,000 people are currently on the national waiting list for organs. As of Nov. 10, 651 of those were on the national waiting list in South Carolina, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. In North Carolina, there are 2,851 on the list.

Many donor families, elected officials and hospitals around the state, such as Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, have made organ donation part of their mission. Grand Strand Regional is one of six S.C. hospitals that have been recognized for increasing organ donor rates.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services honored the hospital last month - its second consecutive year.

Representatives from LifePoint, South Carolina's organ procurement organization or OPO, accepted the honor for Grand Strand and will present the hospital with the award in December.

In North Carolina, seven hospitals were honored including Wilmington's New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Hospitals and their organ procurement organizations nationwide were honored at a meeting last month in New Orleans for achieving and sustaining a donation rate of 75 percent or more of eligible donors.

"It's a nationwide effort to increase the number of donors through awareness and education," said Sue Poveromo, communications editor for LifePoint. "Hospitals like Grand Strand have embraced the need and have helped in that process."

One donor can save as many as eight lives and can help enhance the lives of hundreds more through tissue and ocular donations, Poveromo said.

LifePoint has helped each hospital throughout the state develop its own standards and implement the best national practices to help it increase its donation rate.

"Grand Strand's successful rate of donation resulted in a hospital quality improvement process," said Nancy Kay, CEO and President of LifePoint. "They made appropriate donor referrals, allowed for good consent process with the families, and managed donors appropriately," Kay said.

Cheryl Paul, director of critical care service for Grand Strand Regional, said the hospital has a close working relationship with LifePoint. "LifePoint comes in and reviews all charts and they see who has expired, and if there are any patients they should have been called about," Paul said.

Whether the number of increased donors means more people are receiving organs depends on if a donor and recipient are compatible.

Hospital officials say it's a public issue because the waiting list increases faster than the number of donors.

Crosby, who wasn't an organ donor at the time of his transplant, knows that firsthand.

"Whether it's a loved one or not, at some time in your life, people are going to come across someone that needs an organ," Crosby said. "We need to think about the program. Even if we don't know someone, we can help someone."

To aid hospitals in their efforts to encourage organ donation, state Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, filed a bill adopted this year to prevent family members from overriding a loved one's decision to be an organ donor. If a person chooses to be a donor, it should be clearly identified on any approved document such as a driver's license, according to the legislation.

The previous law was a little unclear, said Rankin, who is an organ donor. "This clearly states that a person's desire to be a donor should be honored," he said. "My goal was not to make it mandatory, but to bring to focus that choice."

Mary Hill has had the same goal since her 12-year-old daughter LaKendra died in a car accident in 1994. Hill said she shares her story and speaks to others about the need to donate every chance she gets.

She donated LaKendra's heart, liver and kidneys. LaKendra's liver saved the life of a four-year-old boy named "Bubba." Hill keeps in contact with the family of "Bubba", now 17, to this day.

"For the healing process, it helps so much by donating because you know a little part of them is still living," Hill said.

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Download a donor card from LifePoint's Web site: www.lifepoint-sc.org.

Fill out the card, keep it in your wallet and let your loved ones know about your desire to be a donor. Donor cards can also be obtained from the Division of Motor Vehicles. For more information, call LifePoint at 800-462-0755 or 763-7755.

At a Glance
A support group for donor families meets at 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month at First Baptist Church, 500 Fourth Ave. N., Myrtle Beach. Call LifePoint at 1-800-462-0755 for details.

Contact JANELLE FROST at 443-2404 or jfrost@thesunnews.com.