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SALT LAKE CITY — Hours before London Layton died in her sleep, she had checked a little box on her learner's permit application to become an organ donor.
After a brief conversation that day in December, the 15-year-old had told her mom, "Of course I'd help," Casey Layton, London's father said Thursday.
"That made it easy for us as parents to know what to do and why we would do it," he said. "It does bring some peace to us to know that she had an opportunity to help someone else."
More than 1.5 million Utahns have declared themselves organ donors, should their own lives be cut short. But Alex McDonald, director of public relations at Intermountain Donor Services, said even more than the check mark, family and friends need to know of the decision because they are often the ones left to make it happen.
"Life sometimes takes a turn and you don't expect it," said Gerri Osman, whose 16-year-old son was hit by a car while walking to East High School 10 years ago and ultimately suffered a fatal head injury. She had been "on the fence" about organ donation, but her son, Sebastian, was certain he wanted to do it after a presentation in his driver education class.
"As a mom, your instinct is to make your child better, to fix what happened and to take your child home," she said, explaining that organ donation was the furthest thing from her mind while her only child was on life support.
He was declared brain dead and doctors began giving Osman some choices, one of which was to donate her son's working liver and kidneys.
"I didn't have control over the situation that day when Sebastian was in his accident. I couldn't reverse what happened. I couldn't bring him back. But I did have the power to honor his choice and pay it forward and to help others," she said, adding that she has received more from the experience than she felt possible.
And Lisa Osmond experienced much the same thing after knowing her 17-year-old son, Adam, who died of a drug overdose in 2003, wanted to donate his organs upon his death.
"He hoped to be able to help somebody someday," she said, thankful she knew his wishes, which they had discussed only two weeks prior.
"I knew my son wasn't going to come home, but I grabbed onto that lifeline that I knew he was going to make a difference," Osmond said.
In 2012, Dan Martin was on the other end of things — with heart failure threatening to end his life. He was put on a transplant waiting list and said he was "days from having to make a decision" when 35-year-old Benjamin Munoz met an untimely death and his family agreed to organ donation.
Martin, 59, who met the donor's family just last week, said he feels Munoz's heart lives on in him and has spurred a new-found interest in running and increased activity levels that were not a part of Martin's life prior to the surgery.
Munoz's is one of more than 5,000 names of Utahns who have donated organs, tissue or eyes, that are etched on glass panels at the Celebration of Life monument at the southeast corner of Library Square. Martin, the Laytons, Osman and many others were there to commemorate them and the thousands of lives impacted by their choices.
In 2015, more than 350 transplantable organs were shared throughout Utah and areas of neighboring states, marking a record number of lives saved in one year through organ donation, McDonald said. He said the number of people willing to donate increases each year, even though circumstances are different for everyone.
"It's all about timing," said Mike Ingraham, an organ donation coordinator with Intermountain Donor Services. He used to be a nurse in the intensive care unit at St. Mark's Hospital and said an experience with a homicide victim changed the course of his career.
Ingraham helps to educate the families of potential donors and though consent rates in Utah are relatively high, he has a limited amount of time to make good on their wishes.
A potential organ donor must die on a ventilator or on life support at a hospital, and barring complications, doctors can take the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and small intestines. People who die in other ways can be eligible to donate bone and soft tissue, as well as all or parts of the eyes.
"None of this occurs if people don't say 'yes' (to organ donation)," Ingraham said. "You have to sign up and tell your family."
London Layton's Dec. 12 death, due to complications related to Type I diabetes, came as a complete shock to family and friends who knew her, but she was able to donate leg bones, soft tissue, the aortic valve of her heart and her eyes to fulfill her wish of helping people.
It was hard for the family, but Casey Layton, of Farmington, said he is "extremely grateful for the opportunity to hopefully impact the quality of life for someone else."
