Organ donation 'a silver lining'

By ANNETTE FULLER  | Winston Salem Journal

Credit: Journal Photo by Bruce Chapman

From left) Kevin Reece and George Pingho pose at the "Tree of Life" sculpture in the lobby of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., Monday February 14, 2011. Kevin Reece fulfilled his wife's wish, Derie Reece, to be an organ donor after her sudden death. George Pingho, a kidney recepient, never knew anything about the donor except that it was from a 37 year old woman. Through his friendship with Reece, Pingho is able to associate a face to organ donors.

When his wife collapsed suddenly, just hours after complaining about a migraine, Kevin Reece of Elkin drove to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center behind his wife's ambulance.

But on that day, May 25, 2010, she suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage, and there he was, looking at his 33-year-old wife's brain-dead body.

He knew she had a heart symbol on her driver's license, indicating that she wanted to donate her organs, and she also had spoken to him about those wishes.

"When I spoke to the neurosurgeon about organ donation, it was like I was outside of my body, looking at myself talking," Reece said.

Within minutes, a coordinator from Carolina Donor Services was dispatched to the hospital and helped Reece through the donation process. His wife was hooked up to medical equipment to keep her organs healthy until the eager, matching donors could be reached and lined up for transplant.

The heart symbol on the driver's license is enough legally for the donation process to begin, but people should still speak to their family members about their wishes, Reece said.

"I have been there, and I know what it's like," he said. "And I can't imagine how it would have been if my wife had not shared her wishes with me. I might have still had that doubt that she just said 'yes' quickly at the driver's license place, without really thinking."

Her two kidneys, heart, lungs and bone marrow went to recipients or for research.

"I know she would have been very happy to help someone else," Reece said.

Only about one-third of the people needing organ and tissue donations receive them, said Beth Hinesley, community relations coordinator for Carolina Donor Services' office in Winston-Salem.

Helping others upon the death of a loved one "will be a silver lining in the darkest gray cloud you will ever have," Hinesley said. Nearly 60 people can be helped from one person's body, with up to eight people receiving organs, and up to 50 receiving body tissue and bone.

George Pingho of Winston-Salem, a mortgage consultant and entrepreneur, is one who benefited from an organ donation. His kidneys began failing in 2005, and by that August, he needed dialysis to stay alive. Several times, potential transplants fell through.

Finally, on Aug. 29, 2007, he got a transplant from a donor, and his life started over again.

He has spoken several times on behalf of Carolina Donor Services, and met Reece at one of those events. The two hit it off and became friends, in person and on Facebook.

One night, Pingho happened to be working late, and around 2 a.m., saw that Reece posted something on Facebook similar to, "Why was my wife taken away from me?"

On an impulse, he called Reece and consoled him by acknowledging his pain and by telling him, "I have asked myself the opposite question: Why am I still here? This is the benefit that families like yours gave me."

The vast majority of religions either endorse organ donation or maintain that it is an individual decision. There are no fees to the family of the person whose organs will be donated, and the procedures can be done quickly, with no delay to the family for a funeral or memorial service. Also, all the work can be done with no obvious damage to the body; an open-casket funeral can still take place if the family desires it, according to information from Carolina Donor Services.

The neurosurgeon that Reece spoke to that night was Alexander Powers of Wake Forest Baptist. He sees brain deaths on a routine basis in his job.

"Many lay people cannot grasp that this is a legal death, because their blood pressure is maintained and the chest is going up and down," but that is happening only because of a machine, he said.

He applauds families that have organ donation discussions during the course of normal life.

"The catchphrase is, 'Leave your organs behind, because you can't take them with you,' " Powers said. "The number of people who can be healed with organs, and who need organs to continue to live a healthy life, is unbelievable compared to what's available. It really is an incredible act of love from living family members and the person who died."

Marcy Lucas of Winston-Salem followed the donation wishes of her husband, Tim Lucas, when he died five years ago after suffering bleeding in the brain.

In June 2007, she received a letter from a New York man who had received her husband's liver.

"That meant so much to me," she said. "I still carry that letter in my purse."

They kept in contact, and Lucas learned that the man who received the liver celebrates a "liver-versary" every March 6, commemorating the day he received the transplant.

Last year, Lucas traveled to Delaware, and the transplant recipient and his wife drove down to say thank you in person.

"A part of my husband is still alive," she said. "It helps me knowing that people benefited from my tragedy."