More organ donors needed to save lives in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY -- Last month the U.S. reached a milestone of 100 million organ donors by selecting "Yes" on their driver's license application. Still, many more "Yeses" are needed.

More than half of Utahns are organ donors. It's a decision that offers those without time on their side a chance to continue living.

"Now I think how ironic it was that I marked 'No' and I ended up being the recipient of someone who said 'Yes,'" Alec Rampton said.

Rampton plays with his son Miles, he knows that being a father is a life event that might not have happened for him.

"You're told, 'Just wait for a call.' It could be a day. It could be 6 months. It could be a year. So my wife and I just kind of prepared for the worst," Rampton said.

Back in 2008, doctors diagnosed Alec with a rare liver disease. The ultimate requirement for the disease is a transplant.

"The physical limitations were only part of the disease," Rampton said. "I had mental limitations. I started to have really cloudy thoughts. And I couldn't really piece thoughts and sentences together."

He'd force himself to go to work and take walks with his wife - anything to take his mind off of his illness. And then came time for a crucial conversation with his wife and family.

"It was difficult to deal with at times, to know that yeah maybe I won't make it through this. But I always had a pretty good feeling things would work out but you do have to kind of prepare yourself for maybe it won't work out."

Making it onto the organ recipient list is a lengthy process - it's expensive and doctors want to try every possible option to heal the patient before taking drastic measures. Alec made the transplant list in March 2009. A month later he received a new liver, something that rarely happens. Only one percent of deaths result in organs that are viable for transplant.

Organ donation typically happens inside the intensive care unit of a major hospital. The patient has to be on a ventilator to keep those organs viable. It's that crucial moment where one life ends and another begins.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports 563 Utahns are on the organ recipient list waiting for a kidney, liver, pancreas, heart or lungs. Many of those patients will die waiting.

Donna Baum knows about that possibility. She needs a new heart. Three years ago, she awoke to the sound of her frantic son on the phone, asking for an ambulance.

"I had a third degree heart block and didn't know it. I suppose you can say I died. And my son revived me," Baum said.

Now she wears a pacemaker and is at a category four heart failure, which is the most severe.

"I couldn't walk from my car to my front door without having to sit down, and you know it'd be like I was running a 25 mile marathon," she said.

Donna has been on the organ donation list since January. For now, her only option is to get an L-VAD, a device that would help her weak heart pump better. It is buying her a little more time.

You just learn to live with it. I look at it this way, now I can be lazy," he said.

She knows the gift of life will only come from a grieving family. Angela Ortega worked with a mother who was having a hard time donating her young daughter's organs.

"Just to know that her child was living on in another way, that really helped her recover," Ortega said.

Rampton ran the Salt Lake Marathon only one year after his transplant. Each breath is a tribute to the man who gave him a second chance at life.

"It was not only fun, it was an uplifting, spiritual experience as we took every step thinking about that person, whoever they are, in Arizona that laid down their life, so to speak, in order for me to live," he said.

The Bee Cause organization, a group that helps fight against negative influence against women in media and society, has planned a fashion show this Saturday in Layton to raise money and awareness for organ donation.

Email: [niyamba@ksl.com](<mailto: niyamba@ksl.com>)

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