Source: Odessa American onlineLike many parents, Luis Tijerina dreaded the 3 a.m. phone call. His son’s intemperance prompted many of them, and over the years Tijerina grew accustomed to waking up to bad news.
A frequent partier, Luis “Louie” Tijerina II, 21, had totaled seven vehicles in his young adult life. The calls usually came early Sunday morning.
“I was always in fear that there was going to be a policeman on the other end or a medical examiner saying you need to come and identify your son,” the elder Tijerina recalled recently. “Every time my phone went off, I dreaded to even pick it up.”
But on Aug. 16, Tijerina’s phone did not ring to bring word of Louie’s final crash.
Riding with a friend in the wee hours of the morning, Louie was ejected from a pickup that crashed into a tree near Floyd Gwin Park in Odessa. The impact was so powerful it ripped the shoes and shirt from Louie’s body.
He lay dying in a parking lot when the authorities found him and rushed him to a local hospital. Louie’s father learned of the crash almost 12 hours later and arrived at the intensive care unit to find his son clinging to life. “It was a hard thing to see,” Tijerina said.
As Louie’s prognosis worsened over the next nine days, Tijerina made a decision that flew in the face of his Native American culture: he and his family chose to donate Louie’s organs.
“We actually went across the traditional line of our people,” Tijerina said. “The body would not be allowed to be handled that way in our culture.”
Louie was in bad shape when he arrived in ICU. He suffered massive head trauma and internal injuries from the crash, including a punctured lung and a lacerated liver.
On the eighth day, the doctors told Tijerina that his son was saturated with medication.
“She couldn’t get the liquid out because it was like Jello,” Tijerina said of a nurse changing Louie’s catheter.
The Tijerinas had made up their mind. Louie would be taken off life support and his organs would be rushed to the first compatible recipients.
“We knew my son was ready to go,” Tijerina said. “He was hurting a lot and had gone through a lot of turmoil in those nine days.”
Though Louie never recovered, his resilient liver did, and it saved the life of a 54-year-old man in desperate need of a transplant, said Pam Silvestri, a spokeswoman for the Southwest Transplant Alliance. Louie’s corneas restored a 21-year-old’s sight in El Paso, and his kidneys are running smoothly today inside a 33-year-old man and a 55-year-old man.
“There were several people that benefited from my son’s donations,” Tijerina said. “I think he would have agreed to the donations if he had the chance.”
Nearly 10,000 people in Texas are awaiting similar life-saving organ transplants, Silvestri said. Around the country, about 30 percent of the 100,000 people in need of new organs eventually receive transplants, but Silvestri said about 6,000 people die before they find a match.
“I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t register to be an organ donor,” said Johnny Jones of Midland, who received a donated liver 13 years ago. “My donated liver has kept me alive to celebrate 50 years of marriage. I’m a registered donor because I want to give back the way others gave to me.”
Though a critical shortage of donors persists, Texas led the country with 146 donors in the second quarter of 2009, Silvestri said. Only three of those, however, were registered donors.
“By registering, folks can take that burden off of their families at an already difficult time,” Silvestri said.
Residents in Ector County have been among the most generous when it comes to registering to donate their organs. The county ranks 15th among the state’s 254 counties with 11,000 registered donors; Midland County is close behind with about 9,000, Silvestri said.
And the numbers continue to climb. Silvestri said Texas increased its registrants by nearly 100 percent from 2008 to 2009, making Donate Life Texas the nation’s fasted growing registry.
In many ways, Tijerina’s decision to donate Louie’s organs has helped him to cope with his son’s death. “I myself have changed my opinion of what needs to be done with me,” he said. “ I will become donor if at all possible.”
Tijerina also has become an advocate for organ donations and is scheduled to speak April 3 at the Southwest Transplant Alliance's annual Celebration of Giving and Living at the Odessa Regional Medical Center. The event provides organ donors and recipients an opportunity to meet and share their experiences.
“It’s going to be a very moving and very hard thing to go through,” Tijerina said. “But a lot more healing will come to know the good and actually see the good that came out of (Louie’s) death.”
IF YOU GO
>> What: Southwest Transplant Alliance's annual Celebration of Giving and Living
>> When: April 3, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
>> Where: Odessa Regional Medical Center Auditorium
HOW TO HELP
>> Register to be an organ donor: www.donatelifetexas.org
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