Number of Organ Donations On The Rise
By ANNIE SNEAD  | WJBF ABC News Channel 6



Augusta, GA -- Georgian's giving is on the rise in a big way. We learned there is an increase statewide and nationally in organ donors...saving lives and helping families with a loss, cope.

Sherrell Gay, organ recipient: "A giving heart still beats on and then she added my name and transplant date."

As Sherrell Gay looks at the quilt hanging in the LifeLink Foundation's office, she is reminded of her organ donor whose heart now beats inside her.

Annie Snead, reporting: "This quilt is one of six that represents the donors who have given their lives to save others."

Gay: "In the blink of an eye, he was gone, but his family knew his withes and that's why they donated everything they could."

Gay feels that donation beating every day. She needed the organ because of a chronic heart condition that made her's the size of a football.

Tracy Ide, LifeLink Foundation: "Over 110,000 people are waiting for a transplant."

Tracy Ide works for the LifeLink Foundation, a non-profit organ and tissue recovery organization in Augusta. She tells us donors inGeorgia and nationwide are on the rise. There are 3.9 million donors today in Georgia, up from 3.4 million in 2009. There are over 90 million donors nationally.

Ide: "They know that their loved ones didn't die in vain, that their loved one is living on in someone else."

Ide says you can donate all of your organs or just one but everything helps.

Ide: "Without organ donation, most recipients wouldn't be here today."

Nine years after her heart transplant, Sherrell Gay is a living example of how important organ donors are.

Gay: "We knew that, for the first time, I was finally going to get my life back. It's a personal choice, but just think you can help 60 people by being an organ donor."

The LifeLink Foundation says you can chose to become an organ donor through your driver's licence or online. For more information visitwww.lifelinkfound.org.