A second chance at life

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s National Donate Life Month.

The campaign focused on bringing national attention to organ, eye and tissue donations and the need for donors.

Baptist Memorial Golden Triangle Hospital held a balloon release Tuesday morning, to promote organ donation.

The goal of the balloon release was to honor and support donor or donor families and anyone who is waiting on an organ transplant.

Baptist Golden Triangle currently has an employee on the transplant list.

We spoke with her, along with one of WCBI’s very own, who has been on that same list.

“Usually, from the time that consent is signed, you’re usually looking at around 24-48 hours and from the time an organ is accepted by the transplant surgeon, the recipients, they’ve been called, and they are sitting at their hospitals waiting,” says Mid-South Transplant First Responder, Ben Peal.

This hits close to home here at WCBI.

Our news director, Robert Davidson, has been the person sitting at the hospital waiting on an organ.

Nearly five years ago, he received a new lung, giving him a second chance at life.

“It’s almost surreal to a certain degree that you sit back and you think the fact that, you know, doctors were able to take a lung from one human being and put it in another one and then continue one life and another life is lost, so you really have a range of emotions,” says Davidson.

One person is added to the nation’s organ transplant waiting list every ten minutes.

“We currently have 113,646 organ needs on our list today and one organ donor can save up to eight lives,” says Mid-South Transplant First Responder Shelly Kidder.

Lacy Cooper is on that list and has been waiting on a new heart since January of 2018.

A couple of months after she was put on the list, Cooper got the call she thought she had been hoping for.

Unfortunately, it ended up being what’s called a ‘ghost call.’

“The donor heart was not a perfect match for me. Therefore, it didn’t go through, but that experience allowed me to be able to really know a little bit about what was coming and feel all of those emotions and so it was a good experience that I’m glad I went through.”

Cooper said the call will come when it’s God’s timing, and until then, she’s going to live each day to the fullest.

Something Davidson knows all too well, which is why he wants to encourage those still waiting on that gift of life to not give up.

“It will come and it will be worth it, you know, there will be days that you’ll think to yourself, ‘Man, this is just not worth it,’ but once it’s over and done with and you’ve established the new routine, it’s well worth the investment.”

Donate Life America said in 2018, more than 36,000 transplants renewed life to patients and their families.