Tragedy’s triumph
Olympic snowboarder
Chris Klug won a bronze medal in the parallel giant slalom competition. He
did it with Billy Flood’s liver.
A friend shot the
13-year-old Flood in the eye at his grandmother’s home in Colorado in
July 2000.
Klug, who suffered from
a rare degenerative condition, received the dead boy’s liver. This would
not have been possible without the donor family’s consent.
In the midst of sorrow,
Flood’s family converted tragedy to triumph when it donated the slain
boy’s organs.
Flood’s mother, Leisa,
told reporters it upset her when nurses kept asking her about organ
donation. Then she began to imagine others experiencing the same pain, and
she realized her son’s organs could help them.
As it turned out, they
would help more than she ever imagined.
With his remarkable
performance, Klug became both an Olympic medalist and the world’s most
famous advocate for organ donation.
After his win, he told
anyone that would listen that 16 lives could be saved each day with
transplants—if organs are available. This month alone, 79,406 people are
waiting for transplants. Yet, lives are lost because it’s difficult to
plan for our own deaths, and too painful to contemplate the deaths of
loved ones.
The Wood River Valley
sees the benefits of organ donation every day. Several valley residents
are alive and well because others overcame their own reservations and pain
to offer the gift of life.
It’s easier to plan
for organ donation before disaster strikes. Sorrow can blind even those
with humanitarian hearts¾until it’s too late.
Families should talk
about organ donation. Adults should make the choice, carry a donor card,
and make sure family members know their wishes.
Donor cards may be
downloaded from www.organdonation.gov
on the Internet. Drivers may list themselves as a donor on a driver’s
license.
With planning, we can
retrieve life from the jaws of death. Become a donor.