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SALT LAKE CITY — In 2003, a young man named Ryan Kay spent the day at Hogle Zoo with his family.
Driving home that night, he fell asleep at the wheel. The car rolled, and the 16-year-old was ejected. Passers-by performed CPR on the teen, who had no heartbeat. After his heartbeat returned, he was flown to the hospital and placed on life support.
Just a month earlier, Ryan had discussed being an organ donor with his mom, Kim Kay, while the two watched a TV show on the topic.
He told her he "would love to be able to do that for someone," Kay said Tuesday as she and others whose lives have been impacted by organ donorship met at the Salt Lake City Library to share their stories during National Donate Life Month.
Though he didn't survive, her son was able to donate his organs and tissue to recipients who were given a second chance at life.
"It makes me happy to know his heart's still beating, his femur bone helps somebody walk, his cornea helps someone see the beauty in life. So much of him is still physically functioning," she said.
Helping others was "his thing," and "there are additional things besides organ donation that he did in his short life," she explained.
"It seems like that's the only reason he was here, to help and save and prevent future harm to other people."
The mother was able to meet the young man who received Ryan's heart. "It was an amazing experience that changed me," she said.
That young man became a father just last year, Kay said, discussing the ways organ donorship not only helps the recipients themselves but future generations and "the lives they touch."
It seems like that's the only reason he was here, to help and save and prevent future harm to other people.
–Kim Kay, donor's parent
"It makes me so proud of (Ryan)," she said.
About 800 Utahns are waiting on transplant lists, according to Alex McDonald, director of public education and public relations for Intermountain Donor Services.
For families of those waiting on lists to receive organs, it is "terrifying and hopeful at the same time," Haley Blackett said.
Her father, who had pulmonary fibrosis, caught a cold last year that turned into pneumonia, further weakening his lungs. Doctors told him he would need a lung transplant, and he began the paperwork and testing to be put on the list.
It took several months until he made it onto the list. The average wait time for a lung is three to six months. After three months of waiting, Blackett's father passed away.
"We wish so much that he could've gotten that transplant. But we decided as a family that our goal is to try to bring awareness to people — help them understand so that maybe somebody else can have a more favorable outcome than we did," she said.
Amanda Terry also described the anxiety families go through as their loved ones wait for a life-saving organ.
When her mom was diagnosed with renal failure, Terry underwent testing to see if she could give her mom one of her own kidneys. However, she wasn't a close enough match, so the family explored other options.
She ended up donating a kidney through a pair donation exchange, and a volunteer, who was a match, gave her mother a kidney.
The surgeries were successful. Though recovery was difficult, "the fact that we can share organs in this way and be able to help others, it was such a privilege to be a part of," Terry said.
For Claire Larson, who suffered with a rare congenital heart disease, receiving a new heart has made an "amazing difference" in her life.
Before the transplant, "I would go to sleep every night wondering if I was going to wake up in the morning and not knowing if anyone was going to be around to take care of my son and my husband," she explained.
Now, she says she looks forward to seeing her son graduate from high school and college, and potentially becoming a grandmother.
Likewise, Keith Robinson, a veteran, is in kidney failure waiting for a kidney. He has been on dialysis for close to four years, and he hopes for the chance to receive a transplant so he can see his 1 ½-year-old granddaughter graduate from high school someday.
After sharing their stories, the group went outside and placed flowers around a memorial at the library, on which the names of 7,172 donors with a connection to the Intermountain area are engraved. Pride shined in Kay's eyes as she found her son's name and gently placed her flowers at the memorial.
For more information about organ donation, visit yesutah.org.
