Register with your state donor registry.
Designate your decision on your driver’s license. Do this when you obtain or renew your license.
Sign and carry a donor card. Cards are available from OrganDonor.gov
Talk to your family now about your donation decision. Help your family understand your wish to be an organ and tissue donor before a crisis occurs. Then they will be prepared to serve as your advocate for donation.
Each day, 78 Americans receive a life-saving organ transplant, thanks to ordinary people who took a few minutes out from their busy lives to declare their intention to become donors.
But more than 100,000 people are still waiting for an organ.
More than 100 people die every week while on the national transplant list waiting for an organ
Anyone can be a potential donor regardless of age, race, or medical history.
There is no cost to the donor or their family for organ or tissue donation.
90% of Americans say they support donation, but only 30% take the steps to be a donor.
Tracy has spent the last two years changing diapers, bathing and feeding her son and enjoying the moments of a baby's progress-the first smile, crawl and step.
Being a first-time parent is a thrill for most couples, but for Tracy, the experience is beyond anything she could have dreamed. Diagnosed with an enlarged heart, she had been incapable of walking even 10 feet. Then, at age 29, Tracy received a heart transplant.
Not three months later, she got news she never thought possible: she was pregnant. Today, if Tracy is tired, it's from running after son Trent.
Myth: If I agree to donate my organs, the hospital staff won't work as hard to save my life.
Fact: When you go to the hospital for treatment, doctors focus on saving your life — not somebody else's. You'll be seen by a doctor whose specialty most closely matches your particular emergency. The doctor in charge of your care has nothing to do with transplantation.
Myth: Maybe I won't really be dead when they sign my death certificate.
Fact: Although it's a popular topic in the tabloids, in reality, people don't start to wiggle their toes after they're declared dead. In fact, people who have agreed to organ donation are given more tests (at no charge to their families) to determine that they're truly dead than are those who haven't agreed to organ donation.
Myth: Organ donation is against my religion.
Fact: Organ donation is consistent with the beliefs of most religions. This includes Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam and most branches of Judaism. If you're unsure of or uncomfortable with your faith's position on donation, ask a member of your clergy. Another option is to check the federal Web site OrganDonor.gov, which provides religious views on organ donation and transplantation by denomination.
Myth: I'm under age 18. I'm too young to make this decision.
Fact: That's true, in a legal sense. But your parents can authorize this decision. You can express to your parents your wish to donate, and your parents can give their consent knowing that it's what you wanted. Children, too, are in need of organ transplants, and they usually need organs smaller than those an adult can provide.
Myth: An open-casket funeral isn't an option for people who have donated organs or tissues.
Fact: Organ and tissue donation doesn't interfere with having an open-casket funeral. The donor's body is clothed for burial, so there are no visible signs of organ or tissue donation. For bone donation, a rod is inserted where bone is removed. With skin donation, a very thin layer of skin similar to a sunburn peel is taken from the donor's back. Because the donor is clothed and lying on his or her back in the casket, no one can see any difference.
Myth: My family will be charged if I donate my organs.
Fact: The organ donor's family is never charged for donating. The family is charged for the cost of all final efforts to save your life, and those costs are sometimes misinterpreted as costs related to organ donation. Costs for organ removal go to the transplant recipient.
Each person who decides to become an organ and tissue donor has the potential of saving and enhancing more than 50 lives and taking up to eight people off the organ transplant waiting list.
One donor can:
Donate kidneys to free two people from dialysis treatments needed to sustain life.
Save the lives of patients awaiting heart, liver, lung or pancreas transplants.
Give sight to two people through the donation of corneas.
Donate bone to help repair injured joints or to help save an arm or leg threatened by cancer.
Help burn victims heal more quickly through the donation of skin.
Provide healthy heart valves for someone whose life is threatened by malfunctioning or diseased valves.
Over half of the Americans on the national transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 9,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result.
Please, Help save lives. Become an organ donor.
Thank you.
