NATIONAL DONATE LIFE MONTH-OGDEN,UT-FREE COMMUNITY EVENT HELD BY OGDEN REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER FOR ORGAN DONATION AWARENESS

Organ donations save lives

Recently, Ogden Regional Medical Center held an awareness event to educate the public on how important organ and tissue donations are to saving and improving lives.

The free community event will be held every year. Ogden Regional will rotate hosting the event with McKay-Dee Hospital, Craig Bielik, medical center marketing director, said. Friday’s event included speeches from pathologist Norm Wahlstrom, who talked about his son’s receiving a kidney from his daughter. Also, entertainer and speaker Paul Cardall spoke about his heart transplant. Cardall was born with a congenital heart defect and was not expected to survive for very long. However, he survived years of surgeries and illnesses before receiving a new heart in 2009.

According to Alex McDonald, director of public education for Intermountain Donor Services, about one in 80 deaths are people who can be an organ donor. Organs that can be donated include, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and small bowel. One organ donor can help nine people.

Organ donors are typically persons who die on a respirator of head injuries. These kind of tragedies often can save lives. We urge people to go to www.yesu  tah.org   and sign up to be an organ donor. And not all organ donors die. Kidneys are an example of organs that can be donated without death to the donor. In fact, Janine Marquardson, 42, of Cottonwood Heights, who is Mrs. Utah International, donated a kidney in 2002 to keep her brother alive. She will compete in July for the title of Mrs. International 2010 in Chicago. Marquardson’s platform, not surprisingly, is organ donation.

Thank you Craig Bielik from Mountain Star Health and Gerri Shafer from HCA Healthcare for sending us your story.