|
A freak football accident took a 16-year-old’s life, but his legacy lives on thanks to organ donation.
Matthew Van Gelderen died as a result of injuries he sustained during an East Union High School game five years ago.
His parents Zona and Jose Zaragoza Van Gelderen, of Manteca, were in El Dorado Hills Thursday at the Blue Shield office complex to promote organ donation along with the daughter of one of Matthew’s organ recipients.
Matthew was on life support for a week when it was determined he was brain dead. It was then that doctors asked his parents about donating his organs.
“We have three living children and they said we’d be crazy not to,” Zona Zaragoza Van Gelderen said. “His twin sister said it’s what he would have wanted.”
Seven of Matthew’s organs were donated to four recipients. Gary Fine, 53, of Amador County received one of Matthew’s kidneys and his pancreas.
“My father was a diabetic — since age 17 — and his kidney and pancreas were giving out because of the disease,” said Fine’s 26-year-old daughter Trish Young. “If it weren’t for the donation, he would have died in six months.”
Young said her father has a new lease on life and is no longer insulin dependent. He was able to walk his daughter down the aisle and can enjoy his two grandchildren thanks to the decision by the Zaragoza Van Gelderen’s.
“Matthew gave the gift of life and will forever be remembered for the four lives he saved,” Young said.
Young works for Blue Shield and is a member of the Blue Shield Cares Team. She held the fund raising event along with Matthew’s parents to raise money and awareness for Donate Life California, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving the lives of thousands of Californians awaiting life saving transplants.
Statistics show more than 105,000 patients are in need of an organ transplant, and 18 of those patients die every day waiting for a donor.
Jose Zaragoza Van Gelderen said if he had not made the decision to donate his sons organs he fears he would not have moved through the grieving process of losing his son.
“I’d be sitting at home thinking about him and doing nothing,” he said. “I talk about him and organ donation all the time.”
The family patriarch has become an avid spokesman, visiting school campuses, community events and reaching out to the Hispanic community to promote awareness.
Jose Zaragoza Van Gelderen, originally from Mexico, said it is not culturally accepted for Hispanics to donate.
“I encourage the students to talk to their parents about donating and giving life,” he said.
Zona Zaragoza Van Gelderen said while her son was in the hospital on life support, she prayed for a miracle.
“We gave that miracle to someone else,” she said. “It would have been selfish not to give.”
To learn more about organ donation, visit donatelifecalifornia.org.
0 COMMENTS:
Post a Comment