Eye bank builds on giving
New offices help team assist others
JILL CALLISON | ARgos leader
Both men still would be in pain, their mobility impaired, except for generous gifts from strangers.
In a spinal fusion, Jones had two small pieces of donated bone placed in his back.
"I was pretty much crippled," he says. "Now I'm able to run around and play with my 11-year-old daughter and my 2-year-old daughter and be a loving husband to my wife."
Berdahl's tibia also was replaced with a donor bone, allowing him to walk.
At the time, he did not understand what his doctors meant when they said, "We'll get some bone from the bone bank."
Today, he does.
Berdahl is the tissue distribution specialist at the South Dakota Lions Eye Bank; Jones its clinical director.
The eye bank, which opened in 1991, recently moved to new offices on West 61st Street North. It will be open Sunday so the public can tour the facility and learn more about organ, eye and tissue donation.
"It's just the greatest gift," marketing and development director Gail Ries says.
Jones echoes that.
"We take the precious gift of donated tissue, and we're able to save and enhance the lives of the recipients," he says. "And we provide that service here locally to not only serve the community, but it serves recipients all over the United States and the world."
Since January, the South Dakota Lions Eye Bank has helped provide sight to more than 362 people in the state, region and internationally.
In the 1960s, South Dakota Lions Club members began transporting donated corneas from South Dakota to eye banks in Minnesota and Nebraska until the eye bank was established here.
In the past, the South Dakota Eye Bank focused on procuring donated corneas, going to the hospitals for the procedure.
Now, the donor's body will be brought to the new facility. That will free up space and personnel at the hospitals.
Most people associate organ donation with the procurement of hearts, lungs, kidneys and the pancreas. They might not realize that one donor can save and enhance the lives of as many as 150 recipients through the donation of eyes, bones, connective tissue such as tendons, heart valves, veins and skin.
Nerves also can be transplanted now. In one of the first nerve transplants at Mayo Clinic, the donor came from South Dakota.
The transplantation of donated bone is the most widely performed transplant surgery done today.
Organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, are government-funded facilities that aid in transplantation of major organs. Smaller agencies work with eyes and tissues.
"We work very closely with LifeSource, our OPO out of Minneapolis, to ensure we get the information - not only for organ donation but for tissue and cornea donation - out to everyone we meet," Jones says.
Berdahl's job is to make sure the donated tissue goes where it is needed.
Although not every cornea can be used for transplant, others can be used for research or for training, depending on their quality.
The training is necessary for staff such as clinical manager Ryan Dott, who pre-processes the corneal grafts according to a surgeon's specifications.
"For certain types of surgery, there has to be a presurgical cut," Berdahl says. "Some of our corneas that can't be transplanted go into our cutting program so he can train, and the cuts will be precise and acceptable."
The new Lions Eye Bank building gives Dott the perfect facility for his work.
"We were very well equipped (before), but a few subtle differences really cater themselves to the tissue recovery and procedures we do here," Dott says.
The Lions Eye Bank also offers a service free to emergency medical service personnel that rarely is found elsewhere.
When a family consents to EMS training, emergency medical technicians and flight paramedics and nurses are able to practice life-saving techniques such as the placement of chest tubes on the donor body.
"One Sunday, a couple of flight nurses were here," Ries says. "One of them came back to my office and said ... 'I can't thank the Eye Bank enough for what I'm learning here. We're going to be able to save lives that we couldn't have without this training.' "
Misconceptions about organ donation exist, and the Lions Eye Bank staff hopes to clear up any confusion.
Tissue and eyes can be donated even if the donor has been in hospice or a died in a motor vehicle accident or at home, Ries says.
"We have a couple hours to be notified if they're a donor," Ries says.
"But most importantly, talk to your family. Let your family know your decision to be a donor."
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