By Kristi Pihl, Herald staff writer
RICHLAND — Becoming an organ donor is as simple as checking a box to have a small red heart placed on your driver's license.
That's part of the reason Jamie Peterson was surprised to find out how many people aren't signed up as organ donors.
Peterson's daughter, Taylor Tefft, became an organ donor after she died at age 11 from injuries she received in a car crash on Interstate 182 near Road 100 in Pasco.
Taylor and her cousin, Alexandra Hatley-Flores, 12, who also was killed in the Oct. 5, 2009, accident, were donors of multiple organs that saved the lives of people they never will get to meet.
The need for organ donors is a message organizers of April's Donate Life month campaign are trying to educate people about, as well as to honor donors like Taylor and Alexandra.
On Thursday, Kadlec Health System employees raised an organ donation awareness flag on the roof of the Richland hospital. The flag was buffeted by winds that caused the employees raising the flag to wear safety harnesses, and the 20 people attending the event to stand in the courtyard below.
Peterson, who works at Kadlec as administrative assistant to the director of revenue cycle operations, came up with the idea for the flag raising this past year when she wanted to do something to mark April as Donate Life month, and as Taylor's birthday month.
The flag is in a prominent position where many will see it as they drive through Richland or come to Kadlec.
"It gets people talking," she said.
Talking about organ donation is something Oscar Sainz, 51, of Burbank, has done since he received a heart transplant May 1, 2009.
He had congestive heart failure and would have died without the organ.
Sainz, who retired from Areva at Hanford, has become an advocate for Washington's Donate Life campaign, and visits schools to talk about organ donation and what it has meant to him.
He said that he always is glad when the students ask him a lot of questions and points out that getting a new heart didn't just affect him. He said that organ donation also affects the family, friends and community of the organ recipient.
Almost two years after his transplant, Sainz said that he is doing well. He regularly exercises and tries to eat healthy, which he hopes will help avoid his body rejecting the heart, which could happen at any time.
Sainz doesn't know what anonymous family made the decision to donate the heart that now keeps him alive. He said he hopes someday to get a chance to thank them.
But Sainz said talking to donor parents like Peterson has helped him understand a family's perspective on donating a loved one's organs.
Organ donation was something Taylor told her parents she wanted to do if something ever happened to her. Peterson said her father, Taylor's grandfather, also was an organ donor when he died almost 11 years ago in a car crash and had set an example for Taylor.
Only about 1 percent of deaths nationwide each year qualify for organ donation, Peterson said. Circumstances have to be just right, and timing is critical.
That's why it's so important to have many people who are willing to be organ donors, she said. It increases the chances of a patient on the waiting list getting a needed donation.
In Washington, about 1,900 people are waiting for a transplant, said Rhonda Wilks, organ donation specialist with Lifecenter Northwest.
Nationally, more than 110,000 people are on a list for an organ transplant, Wilks said. And each day, 18 of them die.
Lifecenter Northwest is a federally designated nonprofit organ procurement organization in Washington, northern Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
This past year, 142 people in the region donated organs that were used in 476 transplants, Wilks said. Any single donor can give up to seven organs, their corneas and tissue grafts for up to 50 people.
Peterson encourages people to educate themselves on organ donation and consider registering as a donor, either on their driver's license, online at donatelifetoday.com or by calling 877-275-5269.
The website allows people to customize their donations and indicate what they are willing to give.
There are a lot of misconceptions about being an organ donor. For example, if someone could have an open-casket funeral before donation, they still could afterward, Wilks said.
Donating an organ also doesn't cost the donor's family a cent, she said. The donated organ will go to a waiting patient in the region and isn't sold.
Peterson has had people tell her they would sign up to become organ donors after talking to her. And that means so much because it's a way Taylor and Alexandra have touched others, she said.
"It's one of the greatest gifts you can give, to save somebody else's life," Wilks said.
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