A pounding heart and sweaty brow voiced Eva Krynovich’s thanks Sunday. The 68-year-old heart transplant recipient helped plant hundreds of trees at Red Rocks Open Space, to honor of organ and tissue donors. It was tough work, but Krynovich said she was happy to do it. Just two years ago she was days from death when non-profit Donor Alliance found her a new heart.
Michael Hale knows how crucial it is to give the gift of life. Hale received a liver transplant on Sept. 21, 2012, after being on waiting list for four years. “The last year I was going south and was on my last leg,” he said Friday at a Memorial Hospital event for donor recipients. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my donor and his family.”
After nearly 30 years of marriage, it’s just Sheryl Marlor and her four sons. Her husband, David, passed away exactly one year ago at 52 years old. While she mourns the loss of her partner in life, she celebrates the lives he’s helped. David was a registered organ and tissue donor–something officials with Donor Alliance say there’s a great need for.
There are nearly 2,700 men, women and children, in Colorado alone, who are waiting on a life-saving organ transplant; nationally there are 124,000. The sheer size of those numbers is why April is celebrated as National Donate Life Month; recognizing those who have already saved others lives through organ donation. KREX-TV in Grand Junction, CO takes a look at the need for organ, eye and tissue donation.
Wyoming is a giving and charitable state. To be neighborly and help others in need is the cowboy way, right? April is National Donate Life Month and the Wyoming Medical Center wanted to share some of the great things Wyoming citizens and families do for others.
To celebrate National Donate Life Month, which is April, trees will be planted across Colorado and Wyoming, in memory of organ, eye and tissue donors from the region. The trees will be planted and dedicated by transplant recipients honoring their donors. Families of donors are also memorializing their lost loved ones.
Coloradans who have donated and who have received donated organs gathered in Aurora to sign the flag that will fly at the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Transplant Games of America. Some participate to honor and remember a friend or a family member who passed away and donated organs. Others who actually donated organs themselves also play a part. Transplant patients participate too.
In celebration of National Donor Day, 9 News sits down with heart recipient Joe and his wife Pam to talk about the impact that his donation has had on his life.
It’s a small red heart in the corner of a driver’s license. It’s one more box to check on a stack of papers at the Department of Motor Vehicles. For many, thinking about organ donation is a passing thought. But for thousands across the country, it’s a lifesaving difference.
Gail Gallagher from Monument represented Colorado on the Donate Life float in the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. Gail was chosen because of how organ donation has impacted her life and fueled her passion to get more Coloradans involved. Gail’s daughter Kate was awaiting a liver transplant herself when she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away. One of her kidneys went to a grandfather from western Colorado, the other went to a grandmother, and her heart went to a 12-year-old girl who had suffered a heart attack on the basketball court.
