Junior Michelle Fredericks said she has been an organ donor since she passed her driving test five years ago and placed the orange donor sticker on her license.
She said she has informed her family members, many of whom work in the health care sector, to make sure they carry out her wishes.
“I think it’s really important because I’ve seen a lot of need for organ donation,” Fredericks said. “I think it’s a really good idea; it helps save lives.”
On Wednesday, representatives from the UW-Health Organ Procurement Organization will be on the Campus Mall providing information about organ donation from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
From 4:30 to 6 p.m., a public presentation, “Raising Awareness About Organ Donation and Transplant: The Gift of Life” will be held in Davies Center’s Council Fire Room.
Besides general information, the session will include stories of firsthand experiences with organ donation.
According to a news release from Sacred Heart and Luther Midelfort hospitals, more than 97,000 patients are on a waiting list for an organ transplant – nearly 1,500 of those living in Wisconsin. In the United States, 18 people on that list die every day without a transplant, and a new patient is added every 13 minutes.
UW-Eau Claire alumna JoAnn Forster, 55, of Eau Claire said a heart transplant saved her life.
After having a silent heart attack in July 2005, Forster received a mechanical heart to pump blood for the defunct left half of her heart. Less than a half-year later, the mechanical heart began malfunctioning and she moved up on the waiting list for a heart transplant. After waiting six months, Forster received a new heart in April 2006.
“I don’t know how long I would have waited if he hadn’t come to the United States,” Forster said of her donor. “There’s not a day I don’t get up and think of him and his family, the gift they’ve given me.”
A native of South Africa, her 18-year-old donor died in a farming accident in the Dakotas.
“My donor is my hero,” Forster said. “I hope my kids would do such an unselfish act as he did. He makes me proud to know him in a remote way.”
Today, Forster is recovering well and said she is now able to do all of the things she could do before her heart attack, including traveling.
Patti See said she is happy to be able to help someone after she dies. In July 2005, See said she donated one of her kidneys at the University of Minnesota Fairview Transplant Center. See is the senior student services coordinator in the Academic Skills Center and is also a lecturer in Women’s Studies.
“It cost me nothing but a few days of my life and an organ,” See said. “I wish I had more kidneys to give away. How could I not save someone’s life and still continue the same kind of life I have?”
