The memory of the day her son died 14 years ago is so vivid that Pam Porter still remembers the smell of the hospital.
Scott Porter was a 9-year-old fourth-grader at Menchaca Elementary School when he got sick one weekend in August 1998. He seemed to shake it off for a time. The following Monday, his mother went to wake him for school and found him semiconscious.
The Cub Scout who loved to go camping and hunting with his dad had suffered an aneurysm. Surgery couldn't stop the bleeding in his brain. His family was told the following morning that there was no brain activity. And no hope.
Doctors at University Medical Center Brackenridge approached the family about donating Scott's organs.
"There wasn't any hesitation," Pam Porter said. "He would have done anything for anybody."
Scott's lungs, liver, kidneys and pancreas were procured. The gift saved lives.
At UMC Brackenridge, which has a level one trauma center, 92 percent of the families who have the opportunity to donate their loved ones' organs do so, a rate that is believed to be among the highest in the country. Despite that, there were just 13 donors from UMC Brackenridge in 2011, the lowest since 1998.
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