CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Those travelling along WV 98 in Harrison County may catch glimpse of a reminder this month that one decision could save multiple lives.
During a Tuesday afternoon ceremony at the Davis Funeral Home in Clarksburg, a “Donate Life” flag was raised in hopes of encouraging people to become organ, tissue and cornea donors.
“April is designated as National Donate Life Month,” said TJ Roser, Funeral Director/ Coroner Liaison with the Center for Organ Recovery and Education. “For the entire month of April it’s a nationwide incentive to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation. We’ve partnered today with the Davis Funeral Home, they’re going to raise the flag and hopefully we bring a lot of awareness to organ and tissue donation.”
The event was an opportunity to share statistics with those in
attendance relating to the need for donors.
For example, the current waiting list for those needing new organs nationwide contains approximately 123,000 individuals.
“Twenty one people die ever day because there’s a shortage of organs,” Roser said. “I started with CORE five years ago. I believe that number [at that time] was at about 114,000 or 115,000. It’s grown tremendously.”
A statistic with mixed implication is that a record was set last year for the number of organ transplants performed with 30,000. Which, while a positive that they were able to be performed, means the demand required that number to be so high.
Convincing people to sign up as organ donors continues to be an issue, according to Roser, and a lot of it has to do with misconceptions.
The most frequent misconception is that if one signs up to be an organ donor, emergency personnel will be less motivated to save that person’s life should they get suffer from injury or medical condition.
“Every effort is taken to save the life of an individual taken to the hospital, all the care is still given,” Roser said. “Organ donation is not an option, or there’s not an opportunity for organ donation until everything else has already been exhausted, so that’s at the very, very end. A lot of people just thinks that’s just the first thing that happens, but it’s not.”
Tuesday’s event also provided a chance for those who have been affected directly by organ donation to speak with one another.
Leading that group was Elizabeth Rose Cunningham, who went through the process of having a loved one donate their organs after losing her first husband Bradley Rose nine years ago.
She said while it was difficult to go through the process of fulfilling his pledge to be a donor, seeing other people benefit from his gift was rewarding.
“I found two weeks after my husband died a letter from the Eye Institute and two people in this world could see and they had been blind when he had died two weeks before. I remember dropping to my knees and sobbing because I was very thankful that I had kept my promise to him.”
More information about becoming a donor can be found at CORE’s website, as well as donatelife.org.