December 31st 2008
News Source: Colorado Springs Gazette
Liver of woman killed in car crash saves another’s life
Carole Pirri didn't think she was really going to die until her doctor looked her in the eyes and told her he didn't expect to see her again. Her liver looked like "a dried-up old meatloaf" because of a genetic problem, and she had languished on the organ recipient list for five years. Her time was up.
That's when she got the call, on May 25, 2003: Don't eat. Come to Denver immediately. We may have a transplant for you.
She hit the highway at 11:30 a.m.; by 6 p.m. she had a new liver. Her husband and two children were ecstatic.
"I woke up a day later," Pirri said, "and I felt like I was going to get out of bed and run a marathon, because I felt so great."
Melody Connett also awoke to a new reality that morning. Her only child and best friend, Jill Connett, had died in a car crash during Memorial Day weekend.
She was a gregarious young woman who resembled Julia Roberts when she smiled, a high school cheerleader and a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado. Jill, 24, was just finishing her first year of teaching at Columbine Elementary School in Denver, and teasing her mom that she'd be relaxing all summer while her mom worked. She had popped into her mom's office a few days before she died and drawn a picture of a turtle with the motto, "stick your neck out for a friend."
Jill Connett had made clear that she wanted to be an organ donor - with the heart sticker on her driver's license, as well as in conversations with her mother. So after her car crash on a Saturday, Melody Connett was told she had to remove her daughter from the ventilator by noon on Sunday, May 25, to salvage her organs.
"That was her wish," Connett said. "I just had to carry it out."
Most of her organs were damaged in the crash, but the transplant team saved her liver. As Jill died, Carole Pirri was preparing for surgery.
• • •
Within hours of Jill's death, Melody Connett learned that her daughter's liver had saved a life. She knew the recipient was a 58-year-old woman who had waited for five years.
Connett eventually wrote a letter to the anonymous recipient through the Denver-based nonprofit Donor Alliance, but received no response. She wrote another letter. Still nothing.
The reason: Carole Pirri couldn't face the transplant from Connett's perspective. Pirri's daughter is nearly the same age as Jill, and she struggled with the anguish she would feel if she were at the other end of the equation.
"My family was ecstatic when I got my liver, but her family was devastated," Pirri said. "I just could not write that letter."
Four years after the transplant, Pirri still couldn't write to Connett. But she wanted to honor Jill, so in the summer of 2007 she decided to walk in the annual 5k Donor Dash in Denver.
The night before the race, she finally forced herself to look at the picture of Jill that Connett had sent her. Pirri and her daughter made copies of the photo and wore Jill's likeness on their backs as they walked.
They didn't know that Connett had been walking in the event each year since Jill's death, and now had a team of 32 friends wearing navy blue shirts emblazoned with Jill's picture, a turtle and the motto, "stick your neck out for a friend."
At the finish line, after seeing Jill on each other's T-shirts, the two women met for the first time.
"We cried - I would say for an hour," Pirri said. "We hugged. We cried some more."
Since then, the women have become friends who feel connected in ways that are difficult to describe.
"I'm not going to say that it takes away the pain, because it doesn't," Connett said. "But it is one way to get something positive out of something negative."
The women now speak together to groups to promote organ donation, and Donor Alliance flew them to Pasadena this week to work on the "Stars of Life" float in the Rose Parade.
"My personality has changed," Pirri said. "I was shy and withdrawn until that time. After I had Jill's liver, I became more talkative, and I can speak in front of groups now."
She credits the outgoing young woman who was born on her 10th wedding anniversary and whose death gave her life.
"I cry a lot now," Pirri said. "I cry for the pleasure of living. I cry for the generosity of people. Jill saved me."
-
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0226 or bill.reed@gazette.com
Facts on organ donation, from the Denver-based Donor Alliance
• 1,812 people in Colorado are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant.
• 21 percent of current transplant candidates in Colorado have been on the waiting list for five years or more.
• 49 percent of those waiting for an organ transplant are between 50 and 64 years of age.
• In Colorado, 60 percent of people who obtained or renewed their driver's license in 2007 said ‘yes' to organ donation
• Recoverable organs include heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas and small bowel. Tissues that are recoverable include bone, tendons and corneas as well veins, valves and skin.
• One donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation and more than 100 lives through tissue donation.
• Every year, the lives of about 500,000 Americans are saved by organ and tissue donation.
• An average of 18 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant.
To learn more about organ and tissue donation, go to www.DonorAlliance.org or call 1-303-329-4747.
People can join the Donor Registry by visiting www.ColoradoDonorRegistry.org
We are pleased to announce the creation of Colorado’s new specialty Donate Life license plate. CLICK HERE.
The latest issue of our quarterly newsletter is available for download as a PDF.
DOWNLOAD OUR CURRENT ISSUE NOW
For more information on becoming a Donor Alliance Volunteer, CLICK HERE.
