 The problem really is finding enough organs for all the people that are desperately in need of transplant. So we are very short of organ donors. They're just not enough organs to go around. That is the rate limiting step. Well, he's dying. I think he's just dying a little bit more every day. I've seen people come to transplant that were so sick. They were saved by someone else's kindness. We gave so that somebody else could live. The gift of life is more than precious. And that's something that we can all give back. It's an amazing gift for a family to give. A phenomenally wonderful gift. Brian Heinzley, a 42-year-old fireman, is one of more than 81,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant. Last year, only about 6,000 families donated a loved one's organs, which is why Brian and his wife, Kim, have been waiting almost two years for the telephone call that could save his life. How you doing, man? It's one of my good friends, John Hanna, me and him have been paramedic partners together for seven years out here. We've been on very major things where people are dying and houses are burning and things are going on. And you have 100% confidence in each other. And I miss that. I miss that around the fire station, working around the nine guys, being a part of the team. Good luck. Thanks. About nine years ago, I got diagnosed with some kind of internal disease, which has been pinpointed to autoimmune hepatitis and has caused my liver to fail. He's been home sick for two years, so he's been getting worse and worse every day. There are days when we don't even talk because he's too sick to talk. We never thought it would be like this, this long of a wait, this sick that you have to be at death's door. When somebody needs a liver transplant, they need one because their liver has failed. And what happens when the liver fails is that there are a whole bunch of systems that fall apart. And when the liver fails, the kidneys fail very soon thereafter, and liver failure can also result in heart damage, can result in serious neurological impairment. And by and large, a successful transplant will write it all. My daughter, she's only three years old, I get to spend very little good quality time with her. Where's my kiss? Where's my hug? She doesn't understand why dad lays on the couch all the time. Hopefully as an end result of this, of a liver transplant, I'll be up and running a hundred percent, and she'll get to know where the real dad's like, come here. Lock my baby. A painful side effect of Brian's failed liver is an accumulation of poisonous fluids in his abdomen that requires a weekly trip to the hospital. I go into the doctor, he sticks a needle in my side, and he drains out 10 liters of fluid once a week. It's things that come up that you deal with, you look forward to the good times ahead, and that's what keeps you going. If it's been a really bad day and he's been real grouchy, he'll apologize and he'll say I'm sorry that I put you through this, I'm sorry another day has gone by and the phone is not ringing. In a small New England town, 12-year-old Carl Johnson went for a bicycle ride with a friend. His mother, an emergency paramedic, would soon be called to his rescue. The tone went off, and I remember throwing out my boots and saying I hope it's not Carl. He was coming across a road, and he was turning to say something to the boy that he was riding with, and I don't think he realized that the intersection was coming up so close. And he never saw the man. When I got out of my truck, I saw our son laying on the ground, and the police officer was there, and he was telling me to be calm, and we were working together on managing the injured person. And then when the ambulance got there, I basically went into emotional overdrive. Carl Johnson was taken by helicopter to Boston, where his parents would learn of his fate. A couple of the neurosurgeons met us, and they did a test they do to determine if someone's brain dead, and if they gave the test to him right then and there, he didn't pass it. And so at that point, they were ready to declare him brain dead. We said something. We're all but waiting for somebody to sign off on this as a legal death. What do we do about getting this, the organ donation, go? You know, at the point that we no longer have any use for these parts, and somebody else does well, then they're good for them. We talked about how he saved four lives, but he's also saved four families from going through this enormous amount of grief that follows the death of someone. Something tangible of our son is out there. He's not completely gone. He lives on in other people. There are two types of organ donors, living and deceased. For those who have died, the process of organ donation begins with the pronouncement of brain death, a concept that is sometimes confusing to the donor's family. The patients have to be declared brain dead. That means their brain stems have died. Their heart works, their vital organs work, but their brain is totally non-functional, irretrievably non-functional. I think that's an important distinction. People misunderstand that all the time, and it's very difficult to explain. It's hard to understand why when you go in and your loved one is on the ventilator, they still look like they're breathing. Their heart's still beating up on the monitor. It's hard to understand that that is death, that they're dead. And the brain does not receive any kind of blood flow due to any kind of trauma to the head where so much swelling occurs in the brain that it cuts off the blood circulation that goes to the brain. And that causes for that tissue to completely die. And there is no regeneration of the brain. And there is no way for the brain to heal itself. The shortage of cadaveric donors is being alleviated in part by living donations of certain organs such as kidneys. Living donation has increased dramatically over the past 10 or 20 years. Organ transplantation has become so much more successful because of the scientific breakthroughs and the understanding of the immune system and the prevention of rejection and the ability to store organs for longer periods of time. The need has increased dramatically. And thus we need more and more organs and we are thus going more towards living donation as we are able to make these operations quite safe. The kidney and the liver, what we call primitive organs. And the more primitive an organ, the more regenerative ability it has. If you take one kidney out of a younger individual, say under 45, the other kidney will grow rather dramatically. And so by the end of six months, you'll have not just 50 percent of kidney flesh in your body, you'll have 70 or 80 percent of kidney flesh in your body. And that's perhaps the reason why donors do so well and there's no difference in the life expectancy of an individual with one kidney or with two kidneys. Living donors is really a very exciting feel that's happening right now in transplantation. In the past we could only get kidneys and now we're seeing that we're being able to successfully transplant segments of liver, segments of small bowel, segments of pancreas and lungs from living donors. So we've increased our donor pool substantially by just utilizing living donors. For most people, living donation is not an option. Your only hope is to receive an organ from someone who has died. There are approximately 81,000 people out there in America waiting for a phone call that could save their life. That's the number of people in a pro football stadium on any given Sunday. Each day in America, 60 Americans have a successful organ transplant that gives them new life. But sadly, on that same day, 15 Americans died because an organ was not available. The seasons have changed, but Brian and Kim are still waiting for a liver. We really thought we would not be going through another winter. I honestly thought he would have this liver before now. It is very depressing for him. I see him, I look at him and I think somewhere in there is my husband, he's in there. But this disease has just, it's just totally wiped him out. I go to bed alone every night and I just, I pray for him to just have the strength to keep going. But when he's his sickest is when I'm afraid this is it. If he does not get a liver now, he's not going to make it. I want our family back. That's my biggest hope that we will have this again, that we will be normal. But instead of a normal life, Brian soon became so sick he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. It was clear that he had had a worsening of hepatic encephalopathy or the confusion state caused by liver disease, chronic liver disease. So immediately we admitted him to the intensive care unit. Hi Brian. How you feeling? I cried. Do you remember any of the events of yesterday, what happened? You were very incoherent yesterday. What happened? I mean, why? Well, I think that's a worsening of your liver disease and has prompted us to put you here and to try and get you a liver more quickly because we think you need one. Now we just wait. Okay. But hopefully the wait won't be too long. Okay. Okay. Good. I used to get real upbeat that it was going to happen but now I'm so beat down and so tired. They can tell me that they're making the phone call right this second to me until I hear it. No, I'm not going to. I can't take any more roller coaster rides. Yeah. I've been on it too many times so when I'm actually on my back and they're ready to cut me open, I'll believe them. But a liver did not become available and a week later Brian recovered enough to be sent home to continue waiting. Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. A man named Johnny Smith was rushed to the emergency room with severe head trauma. He had been repairing a tractor trailer on the highway when a pickup truck crashed into him. And he loved the job he was doing, that he got killed doing. He loved the feeling that it made him feel when he rescued somebody. When brain death appeared to be imminent for Johnny, the family requested organ donation. I recently lost my brother and I wish there had been a liver that he could have received when he would still be here with this man. It just happened too fast. The day my brother passed away, myself and my husband and my daughter sat down and we talked about this very thing, what he wanted and what my daughter wanted. And I talked to my mom about it also. I've had families tell me over and over, I don't think I could have made this decision at the time of his death except for I knew that he wanted to donate. And so his wife already knew that he wanted to be a donor. He had talked to her about that. I went up to the ER at Parkland, which was where he was, and just looked through the chart to make sure that medically there would be no reason why he could not donate. She quickly thereafter they transferred him up to the ICU and the neurologist came back and pronounced him brain dead. The physician went out, spoke with the family, told them that he was indeed brain dead and that there was no chance of recovery. When brain death is pronounced, the process of recovering the organs begins with the consent of the family. Family services coordinator Laura Rodriguez guides the family through the procedure. We do a full evaluation to see exactly what organs can be transplanted before we even go to the operating room. But when we talk about organs, it would be both lungs. It would be the heart, both kidneys, liver, pancreas, sometimes intestines. By you signing this form, it gives us the opportunity to do the evaluation. Donor families are not charged for any of the medical procedures involved in organ donation. All of the costs for donation, for the evaluation of the organs, for the surgical recovery, for the placement and transportation of the organs to their intended recipients are paid for by the organ bank. Throughout the evening, Johnny's organs are kept viable while tests are run to determine their suitability for transplantation. If we have, you know, a really good reason to suspect that they're damaged, we'll go down to CT and then we'll go to CT. A cardiologist evaluates the heart with an echocardiogram. Overall his heart function looks pretty good. His gut probably would look like a relatively normal heart. Even the search begins for recipients for Johnny Smith's organs. How are you tonight? Good. Hey, I was wondering if you could input a donor for me and run a list. The United Network for Organ Sharing oversees organ procurement and allocation under contract with the Federal Government's Department of Health and Human Services. They work with local organ procurement organizations or OPOs. I need heart, liver, and a small KP list. Give me about five minutes to go in there and get to this. UNOS is the hub where critical connections are made, routing a very limited supply of organs to patients with the most urgent need. Can you tell me how long it would take to drive a kidney from Chicago to Milwaukee versus flying it? Many people think that the way the waiting list works is that once a person is on the list that they just simply stay on the list until time has passed and they move up to the top of the list and receive an organ. But it does not work that way. It's a very dynamic and fluid situation in which each person is evaluated based on medical criteria matched with information that's placed in the computer about each organ donor. Each of the OPOs will allocate the organs within their geographic area. So the distribution is first to the local area and then secondly to a larger region and then lastly to the rest of the country. The heart and lungs can be preserved for only four to six hours outside the body, which limits their transportation distance. The liver and kidneys tolerate preservation longer so they can be transported much farther. No, this is a point scale, it's coming to Alabama. The allocation system is something that is a very sensitive issue. We want to try to save as many lives as possible, but we also have to do it in a way that's fair. We will print out a computer listing for kidneys and we'll say all of the patients in this area who need kidneys and they're ranked in order of who matches best. Then telephone calls are made to the transplant centers where those patients are located based on that sequence and so the list itself is simply a tool that's being used to place the organ. The final decision has to be made by the doctors. The doctors of those potential recipients highest on the list are offered the organs first. Hey, I've got a liver offer for you. It's O-positive, 45 year old male, 6 foot, 251 pounds. We review with the organ procurement agency the characteristics of the donor to see if we think it's going to be the best fit and match. The U.N. and creatinine are 8 and 0.5. Assuming that it is, we will then call the patient who has been on our list probably waiting for at least a year. The patient will be brought into the hospital. Simultaneously with all of that, we will send out an organ procurement team which will go out to the hospital where the donor is and will retrieve the organs. Baylor's taken the liver. After a night of tests and phone calls to place the organs, Johnny Smith's body is taken to the operating room where the surgeons can recover the organs. The timing of each organ removal is carefully coordinated between the operating room and the hospitals where the recipients are waiting. Right now they're opening up the pericardium to look at the heart muscle and see if it's contracting well enough. And if they say it looks good, then we'll make a call back to the heart transplant hospital so they can start getting the recipient asleep and ready for the heart transplant. Once we know that the organ is good, we then have to coordinate our own operating room here to get the recipient down and then begin the actual transplant process. Yes, you are ready. Okay, great. Thank you. We are ready to cross-clin. Right now they have stopped the heart and we've started flushing the preservation solution through all the organs, so from this point it's a matter of a certain number of hours before they need to get the organs transplanted. What we had come in to recover for transplant, the heart, the liver and the kidneys all seem to be transplanted. With most donors, the heart and lungs are removed first, then the liver and kidneys and other organs and finally the tissues. For us it's almost surreal in that we're able to take the heart from one person and make it stop beating, preserve it by making it cold and then put it in another person and wake it up and make it start beating when we put the warm blood in it. And we have a liver here that we took out. This recipient happens to be one that it was on renal failure with severe liver failure and this would be a life-saving organ for him. Bye-bye. This patient was able to provide life for the heart recipient, both kidneys and liver and he was also a tissue donor, but as far as organ donation, there's four people's lives that were saved because of one person's decision. Annie Schweder, a 47-year-old mother of four, suffered from heart disease and had been on the transplant waiting list for two years. She got the phone call that would change her life but the timing couldn't have been worse. It came just weeks after her husband died of a sudden heart attack. I got the call at 8, about 8.45 and they gave me until 9.30 to make the decision. My initial reaction in taking the transplant was not to take it because I didn't want to put my kids through any more trauma right now and it was really scary, you know, I don't have a choice. I was either going to do this or I was going to die. B's new heart was donated by a family that lost a 26-year-old mother of four in a tragic accident. The number of heart transplants done in this country is plateaued over the last few years and demand is ever-increasing, so that gap is growing. So there is a real shortage in terms of supply and demand. One of the remarkable things about transplantation is the fact that someone's life is extended or saved through the tragedy of somebody else. Death is something that faces every one of us and I think it's a wonderful thing that somebody who has died has this opportunity of doing in their act of death something kind, something generous to someone else. We took the A-order now and now we're using the heart. It's so neat to look up there and see that it's beating in a regular, it's beating like it's supposed to. It's kind of awesome to sit there and watch that and go, wow, that's mine, it's working right. This is just so cool because this is what it's supposed to look like, you know, and it's a 26-year-old heart and this 47-year-old body, I mean, it's great. That's my 7-year-old's version of my heart transplant. The hospital's in there and mom's getting her heart and all the equipment and the Bible is a verse that God gave me this year and it was a confirmation to me that I was going to get this heart. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a new heart of flesh. I've been carrying that, I carried that everywhere. It was in my car, it was in my purse, it was in my day timer, it was every place that I could keep that as a visual, I had that so that when I, you know, got discouraged about it I realized it was going to happen. I feel good. Yeah, you're looking really good. I really enjoyed working with you and you're going to have a great life ahead of you. And I don't, you know, there's no words. It just don't exist. Thank you guys for everything. You're welcome. Okay, I'll see you later. All right, bye. It'll be in Texas. Goodbye. I'm a teacher's aide working on my teaching credential. My hope is to go back to teaching. I have a real special place in my heart for that. Happy birthday. Mostly, I just feel really humbled that the family agreed to donate the heart and that God got me the heart. And I can raise my four boys to get a new life. Two months after Brian Hynesley was sent home from the hospital without a liver transplant, he received the call for which he had been waiting. His deteriorating condition moved Brian to the top of the list and a liver had become available. Hi. It's been a long time for this. You are not feeling good. I can tell. Now you know everything. Hopefully we'll go. You know, keep it in the back of your mind that things can fall through. Sure. But hopefully this wouldn't be it. Hopefully it will. And hopefully tomorrow I'll see you and I see you. Okay. We have retrieved the liver. The liver is now being prepared on the back bench for the transplant. So we should know in a couple of minutes whether this is going to be a go or not. I just want to let you know that the liver has been canceled because the liver was not good. Okay. I'm sorry about that. But we'll get another one. It was not good. Any questions or anything? It's okay. Not your fault. The purple lady? Yeah. What did she say? What? Are you kidding? Just that it wasn't good to go. I'm so sorry. It's all right. I'm so sorry. Everything can look really nice on paper, but they can go up and look at the liver and it can be a bad liver. He's been waiting a very, very long time. Right now unfortunately we'll wait for people with his blood type is so long because there aren't enough organ donors. The shortage of organs is particularly acute for minorities, who have a disproportionately higher need for transplantation. Good to see you. In Washington, D.C., transplant surgeon Dr. Clive Callender has become a spokesperson for donation within the minority populations. The biggest obstacle in the past had been that minorities were not donating. We found that first there was a lack of information, lack of transplant awareness. No one had gone to the African-American community to educate them to let them know what the problems were. The second obstacle had to do with religious myths and misperceptions. Concerns that in the great getting up morning, when you go to the pearly gate, St. Peter will say, you only have one kidney, then you only get one wing. Forgetting that it's a new heaven, it's a new earth, it's a new body. And so that's the concept that we have to overcome. The Christian religion, the Jewish religion, the Muslim religion, the Hindu religion, the Buddhist religion, all major religions endorse and embrace organ donation. The third obstacle that we identified is the lack of trust in the health care providers. The basic fear that if I signed a donor card that I would be prematurely declared dead. The medical team that takes care of you has as its only job to take care of you. It is only after that you have been declared dead that they call in the transplant team, which is a separate team of coordinators, that come in and ask you for permission to leave organs and tissues behind after you are dead. These misconceptions are being addressed through education and public awareness. Organ donation nationally, to a large degree, has not grown in the last eight or nine years. But the growth we have experienced has been from minority families. We're seeing almost a 3% national increase from minorities. I'm thrilled and excited that we can make this difference. I recognize we can do even more. If we can get the message to the community, the community will hear and change their behavior and become part of the solution. National donor Sabbath is an interfaith celebration where the religious and the transplant communities join together to increase the awareness of organ and tissue donation and to dispel the religious myths and misconceptions about donation. What's it all about? It's really about donating your organs and tissue to another person to help save or enhance their lives. And the most important step to become an organ donor is to share your decision with your family. I've changed my mind, especially since the church has brought it out in front, you know how important it is and I know a little bit more about it. I'm not afraid and I think it's an important thing. Latinos suffer so much from diabetes and hypertension that they end up being on the waiting list. And so once all that is explained to them, they're very generous, they're very giving and very compassionate about others. Lisbeth Alcala, she's five and a half. She was 13 months. We noticed something in her right side. She has tumor in her liver. And they did a lot of tests. They found was cancer in her liver is so damaged and she needed a new one. Lisbeth had suffered quite a bit as a small child and went through the transplant down at UCLA very successfully. She's a picture of health and a very happy child. I have a miracle child. I'm so happy to have her. She's so different since her transplant. She's happier, healthier. She's a new, a new child. Why do you like this picture with your dad? The donation process started for Janon Malone when she faced a sudden medical crisis. I lost my husband. We had been married for three years and nine months. I heard this thump on the floor and I rushed in the room and my husband was lying on the floor. So I immediately called 911 and they responded. They responded as if they were on the corner waiting for my call. I sort of liked this picture too. He died of a brain aneurysm. He was brain dead almost instantly. I had to make a decision to just release him, totally release him. The nurse said that I'd like to talk to you and she asked me if my husband could be an organ donor and I said yes. We had talked about being a donor family. You know, my husband's theory was that he wanted to be here when he was gone and that's what he always told me. He said, no, I want to be here when I'm gone. And one day I asked him, I said, what do you mean? He says, because I'm going to be a donor, an organ donor. And I thought about what he was saying and it made a lot of sense. My biggest comfort and my biggest reward is knowing that there are other people out there that are living as a result of my husband being an organ donor. Oftentimes I'll look at someone and I'll smile and say, that may be the one. It's a good feeling. It's a great feeling. Eight days after Brian's second unsuccessful attempt for a liver match, he got the call for surgery again. This is the third time now that they've called and said they got a liver for me and it's supposed to happen at 8 o'clock this morning now. I've just been so sick lately that I'm basically looking forward to it, knowing that that's a means to the end here. The vital signs look great. We're just about ready to have you doze off for us. We've got a very good organ for him. It's the same blood type. It should be a good match in regards to size. And if, you know, if we can take his liver out successfully, which I'm sure we can, and if this liver works, he should do very well. He should completely return back to a normal life. Have a pool sucker ready, please. Not enough liver to sustain somebody one half his size. It's a very good liver. Perfect. The color, the edges, the consistency of the liver. Putting my bypass now. Here's the liver. You can see how small, shrunken it is. A lot of cirrhosis. You can see the difference very easily between what this normal liver looks like. Pretty large compared to that small, shrunken disease liver. We're going to be reperfusing in about 30 seconds. Okay, super hepatic is off. See the way the liver's starting to pink up. The liver feels very good. Nice color. See this color, gentlemen? See how it's come back to life. You know what? I don't know what's next. I cannot wait. I'm going to be dating the man I married all over again. I don't even know what he's like. Being sick. I mean, I knew him in high school. He was sick. But look at this. We've been married the whole time and he's been off work all this time. Hi there, how are we doing? Hi, how are you? Hi, Kim. Hi, Kim. Yes, how are you? Everything went very, very well. Really? It was about this big and a normal liver is about that big. So it's probably half the size of a normal liver. Three days after his transplant surgery, Brian shows dramatic improvement. You look good. You look so good. You're so clear. Eyes are clear. Your eyes are clear. I feel like a new person. I have no headache. I used to have a headache every single day. I used to be confused every single day. And I wake up every morning with a smile on my face. And even though there's pain right now from, you know, being post-op three days, I feel wonderful. Kim, can you touch my hand? Feel good. Big hug. Big hug. Love you. Say bye, Daddy. Bye, honey. I'll see you pretty soon. Right thing you say is all worth it. My wife, my family, the smile I can bring to them. Oh, boy. This is going to be good. You have to wait 22 months is a very difficult thing. And we lose a lot of patience because we just don't get enough organs. And that's exactly what the situation is all about. I mean, it's a tragedy because we had to wait almost two years and, you know, it almost had to end up, you know, being on life support before we could get an organ for them. That's the tragedy. This cloud had a silver lining, but there are a lot of folks as clouds that don't have any silver linings. Carmen was 28 years old when she passed away. She was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and she had it from birth. And we ultimately knew somewhere along the way that she probably would need a lung transplant. She was told that she would only have to wait about a year at that point in time. Well, it got to be two years and we still didn't have any lungs. She got ill. We remained in the hospital for almost eight weeks waiting for her to receive a transplant, but no donor was available. And she ran out of time. Waiting for an organ is probably one of the hardest things that I've had to experience with my daughter. Every day was just a wait. Carmen would sit there and say, well, another day we'll see what comes tomorrow and see what the lungs are tomorrow. She had the tubes in her throat. She couldn't speak, but she spelled out on a little board. She looked around. She said, all this and still no lungs. It's hard to see someone you love suffering. And it's hard to wonder if there's something available and no one's donating. And you wish that you could make a difference and, you know, at that point in time, there's really not much you can do. I don't think it takes long for you to decide to want to be a donor if you know somebody like Carmen and if you know that you could help somebody like Carmen. Kenneth Moritzugu, Deputy Surgeon General of the United States, has twice faced the decision to donate organs from his own family, first with his wife, Donna, and four years later with his daughter, Vicki. I was very fortunate because many years ago, my wife, Donna, and I had talked about what we wanted to do when one of us died. And we decided back then that we wanted to be organ and tissue donors when we died, and we told each other that. When I got called to the hospital eight years ago to be told that Donna had been in a severe automobile accident and that she was dead, she was brain dead, and the neurosurgeon asked me what is it that you would want to do? And I could remember our conversation and even in the depths of my grief was able to say this is what she wanted and I had the privilege to carry out her wishes. With regard to Vicki, it's a slightly different story. One night she crossed the street in the dark on a wet pavement and was struck by a car. Went after about three days, Vicki finally died. I wasn't really certain what Vicki really wanted because we had not spoken about it directly to each other. But thinking that I knew my daughter, I said, I think this is what she would have wanted. The thing that just breaks your heart is when that doctor walks into the family and says, have you ever discussed organ donation? And they say, no, it never came up and since he never said anything we don't feel comfortable donating the organs. And that really is a key element here. Can't overlook it. Just the conversation so that you know what's in your heart is being shared with a member of your family. One of the common misconceptions about organ transplant is that celebrities are given preference. Actor Larry Hagman discovered unexpectedly that he needed a new liver. I would see this doctor and call me up a couple of days later and say, Larry, you have a life-threatening deal with your liver. And I said, really? He said, yeah. I mean, it's very serious. You could die in the next six months. I said, how can you tell that from there? He says, because of your blood shows that you're in real trouble. I remember being very ambivalent about getting a transplant. I said, look, I've had 64 wonderful years. I really don't need to go through all that stuff. I'd rather check out now. My wife said, no way, buddy. And my doctors, they persuaded me to do it. So I was placed on the list and I got it very quickly. I was very lucky in that the liver was supposed to go to four other people and for some reason they weren't available. The woman that was supposed to get it in front of me, the liver was too large and she couldn't carry it. I guess people thought that I was going to get it but they didn't assure me that that was not the case. They gave me two months to live when I was waiting around for it and so I guess I was pushed to the head of the line because I was on the threshold. I was going to die and I jumped in there and that's the way they do it. If you're really, really, really sick they push you ahead of other people. Our system is blind to celebrity status. The one that comes to mind is the case of Mickey Mantle. Many folks thought that because he was a great star that he received some sort of preferential treatment in the allocation of the organs and that's not true. As it turned out on that particular day based on his status, his blood type where he was located he was the top person for that match. We also went back and did some checking and found that during that same year there were 400 people in this country who received liver transplants in a faster amount of time than he had and so it's not just a matter of what you're going to do with your status as a celebrity or not being a celebrity. You have to wait on the list just like everybody else does. You have to be the sickest person that needs that organ. You have to be the right size. You have to have all the right typing, tissue type. You have to match that organ. That's the only way you're going to get the organ. And now it gives me great honor to introduce you to the athletes of the 2000 Ladies and gentlemen Team Alabama! Every two years the U.S. transplant games features more than a thousand athletes who are all organ and tissue transplant recipients. And now our donor families. One of the highlights of the games is the introduction of the donor families. For many of them it is the first time their generous gift of life has been publicly acknowledged. I understood it but it really did not click until the opening ceremony. And I saw all the recipients and all the other donor families and I said he's here. I know he's here somewhere. And that's when I really knew what it meant to be here when you're gone. Please welcome to the podium Mr. Larry Hagman. Oh boy. I feel like a rock and roller. You know, I never get a chance to see all the people I work for. You all. I was watching the people walking down here and their t-shirts on and I could see all the scars of our battles. I honor those scars. I'm sure you do too. Oh hell, I'll show you mine. How about that first one? That's the old Mercedes Benz! And I want to ask that all the people watching out there think sincerely about about recycling themselves. Hell, we recycle everything else. Tin cans, tires, metal. Why not ourselves? Let's think about that. My wife in August of 97 had a catastrophic stroke. And we had talked that if either one of us had any organs to donate to go ahead. At that time Bobby kidney was failing. Both of us knew him very well and praise the Lord he got my wife's kidney. Now you know the only thing I can say about this? I can't see my wife going to bed with this guy every night. At the transplant games organ and tissue recipients compete in athletic events as a celebration of their new lives. I received a liver transplant. I've always been an athlete and I got sick for about a year prior to my transplant. And I was given two weeks to live and 11 years later I am. I think the game is a way to meet people who have something in common with you and to share those experiences and just to realize how precious and beautiful life is and what a miracle you have with transplantation. Our son Mark, this is Mark from birth. He lived for 10 days and when he died we donated his heart. His heart went to a six week old baby boy from Florida who we just met yesterday. It was divine inspiration that I just thought organ donation. When I said to Mark if our son is going to die I want to donate his organs. He said yeah. It was just something that we immediately looked at each other and said yes that's the best thing we can do and we found out that our baby boy had a congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome and that without some type of intervention he would die. All we could do was rely on our faith and pray and that happened. We're very fortunate. It really is a miracle for the donor families too. At a time when something tragic happened to us it just gave us something a little control over. It gave us something to have hope. Let something good come from our son's death. And then when you actually get to meet the people and you see the outcome especially here at the games it makes it something that you can touch it's something real that actually happened. The transplant changed my life dramatically. I had energy I was able to go out and get a job I met a wonderful woman I'm a recipient I received something you guys you guys saved my life and other people like me that makes you the heroes all of you not us you had just lost a loved one but somehow you managed to look beyond your grief beyond your pain and to think about others that kindness that generosity that strength is awe inspiring and I salute you for that. The organ donation gave us something positive it was like a lifeline for us too we know that Jacob has life but it was like a life after death for us too because it helped us to keep going. We're the appreciative ones without them there's a good chance that Jacob wouldn't be here. It's been wonderful to meet other donor families and to see how really important this is to everybody. I've always viewed quilting as cutting things apart and finding a way to put them back together again to make something that fit and I view this quilt as the material before as our family before our son died and trying to find a way to put the pieces back so they fit and that's what this event has begun to help us to do we're starting to see our new life as it fits thank you all and happy Tuesday morning we're happy to be here today and to welcome Mrs. Schwader back let's give her a big round of applause here she is today back with a brand new heart and ready to come back to work with with all of you kids and all of the staff there you go when I used to come up these stairs I used to take like three or four stairs at a time and stop and under the railing try to get a deeper breath and then when I got to the top I mean if I wasn't ready to pass out which I just about was I'd have to sit for at least 10 minutes I did those stairs without stopping it was cool and I kept saying yeah I have a new heart I can do this this heart works I love being back and I didn't realize how special this was until I wasn't here in the transplants Brian and his wife Kim throw a party to celebrate his return to a normal life six months ago I was looking at maybe not making it and now it's a whole new life again I feel like I'm going to live the rest of my life as a healthy person glad to bypass your name for years how you doing? very good sorry I think it's about a year to get up here it's just around the corner yeah I know he's enjoying that life that that donor allowed him to have and I think we can't ask much more than that if somebody doesn't donate the organ I am not here today somebody was unselfish enough to donate a loved one who died at a young age to allow me to live and other people that's what this is all about it's a miracle I have my wife now and she's dead but I look around at this room right now and I never knew I had this many friends this Wednesday or this Thursday is going to be six months from my transplant and I'm going back to work what's new guys my captain told me to just worried about you was there any doubt? I wasn't the first to have you back good to be back thanks Mark it's a wonderful day huh it's a great day in candy country oh yeah they don't give much back I don't know what to do I can't believe you let him do that I can't believe you let him do that that's one of the reasons I love the environment though because of things just like that the hose is still the same the water still goes out the end right okay you come to see daddy you come to see daddy on his first day back at work yeah you miss me already today I miss you she saw me in his uniform for the first time and she can say my dad's apartment yeah not everyone will say yes because it is such a personal decision but consider it and if you decide what you want to do then make sure you're next of kin your loved one knows that that is what your wishes are when I have to stand there and disconnect the patient knowing that they could have saved up to eight people's lives or more that is the most frustrating thing about my job there are no barriers there's no age limit there's no color there's no sex there's no discrimination when it comes to the gift of life I sure am grateful to all the donor families out there without them I'm not here today even though you don't want to face your own mortality you still have to talk about it you still have to decide when there's nothing left you can do for yourself do you want to do something for someone else you're really talking about life about the gift of life and about truly making a difference it's scary how good I feel I feel terrific every single day the few times I am sick is absolutely nothing to go from near death to a standing living breathing joyous person it is pure elation he's more loving life every day he played hard he did everything hard went fast and he's more slow now we don't take life for granted anymore he doesn't yeah he is not the same person that he was every day is a gift every day is borrowed time or new time, new found time for us and it's a precious gift I enjoy every second of every day I treasure my time at home with my family I treasure my time that I can give to the community as a firefighter paramedic it's a gift Brian is the love of my life he is an amazing, strong individual he's so giving he loves everything and he notices the little things now and that's amazing to me my greatest gratitude is being a fireman, a paramedic a loving husband and a caring father I look at that as my thank you letter every single day is how I lead my life I say thank you every day by doing these things thank you certainly is not great enough for what we've experienced