Rollover victim lives on through organ donation
By Linda Bell
Livermore Correspondent
No one ever expects to get that call. The one so often dramatized on soap
operas or "ER." That call from a sheriff's office saying a family member
is now in a hospital following a serious accident.
For Greeley resident Arthur Stone, it became his reality on June 19 when
his 22-year-old son, Nicholas, was flown to Poudre Valley Hospital by Flight
for Life after a one-car accident along the Red Feather Lakes Road. Nicholas,
the driver of the vehicle belonging to his father and stepmother, was with
a cousin. The cousin also suffered a head injury in the multiple rollover
but was released from the hospital a few days later. Neither man was wearing
a seat belt at the time of the accident.
Stone said when he got to PVH a doctor told him his son was in a worst-case
scenario. He was on life support but technically brain dead. In the short
time remaining to Nicholas, his father remembered the day last September
when his son renewed his Colorado driver's license and checked the box
for "organ donor." The hospital called in the Donor Alliance, and the Stone
family authorized permission for Nicholas's organs to be harvested.
"As a result," Stone said, "Nicholas saved the lives of four other people."
Nicholas's heart was given to a 39-year-old Colorado woman with heart disease.
His liver went to a 39-year-old Colorado man suffering with hepatitis C.
His kidneys went to a 69-year-old in Tennessee and a 19-year-old Colorado
woman with end-stage renal disease.
Stone said the organ donation helped the family a lot, knowing Nicholas
is living on and contributing in a very big way to the lives of others.
He added that the immediate reporting of the accident by the Adams family
across the road from where it took place and the quick response from Glacier
View Volunteer Fire Department EMTs and other first responders enhanced
the opportunity for organ donation. Stone said he was grateful to them
for the 72 extra hours he had with his son before he died.
Nicholas's organs added to a record month in June for the Donor Alliance,
with 17 organ donors in Colorado and Wyoming.
"In Colorado and Wyoming an average of nine people die each month waiting
for a lifesaving organ transplant," said Sue Dunn, CEO of Donor Alliance
in Denver.
Greg Niswender, chief of Glacier View Volunteer Fire Department, who was
on the scene of the accident, said the volunteers with Nicholas worked
to keep him alive. He said a person can't become an organ donor until pronounced
dead. Should that happen at the scene of an accident, a law enforcement
officer checks the donor information and alerts the hospital. Niswender
said so far that hasn't happened in his experience, but volunteers are
trained for that protocol.
"It's rare for people of that age to have the forethought to be a donor,"
Niswender said. "I'm sure knowing what he wanted was a great comfort to
his family."
According to Jennifer Moe at the Donor Alliance, anyone of any age has
the potential to be an organ and tissue donor. She said Colorado is a first-person-consent
state, which makes a person's decision binding at the time of death.
Since Nicholas was being kept alive on life support, his family made the
necessary authorization following his wishes before he was pronounced dead
so that optimum use could be made of his organs and tissues.
Moe said in Colorado 62 percent of people who obtained or renewed their
driver's license in 2005 said "yes" to donation; in Wyoming, that number
is 85 percent.
She said people who want to become organ donors can register at the time
of renewing or obtaining a driver's license, or they can go online to register
their decision at www.ColoradoDonorRegistry.org.
|
