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| For immediate release: April 25, 2012 |
Contact:
For PVH: Gary Kimsey, 970.495-7427 glk@pvhs.org
For MCR: Kelly Tracer, 644-1211, kat6@pvhs.org
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Open houses on April 27 and April 30 offer education about organ and tissue donations
Among the events will be a speaker's panel at the Medical Center of the Rockies where families will share stories about members who donated or received organs and tissue. One speaker will be a Loveland mother whose 7-year-old son died almost a decade ago. The donation of some of his organs helped save the lives of three people.
Poudre Valley Hospital and the Medical Center of the Rockies will host open houses at the end of April to offer the public information on how to become an organ and tissue donor.
The open houses are part of National Donate Life Month, which honors the generosity of organ, eye and tissue donors and their families, and transplant recipients.
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A quilt panel that commemorates organ or tissue donors will be on display at the MCR event. Each square of this Rocky Mountain Threads of Life quilt was created to represent the thoughts and feelings a family has about their loved one who donated or received an organ or tissue.
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The PVH open house will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 27 in the Cafe A conference room.
The MCR open house, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 30 in the Longs Peak conference room, will feature a couple of Colorado families who will tell their stories about being part of the donation process, with a family member as either a donor or recipient. They will share their stories in a speaker's panel at 11 a.m. and noon.
Among the speakers will be Loveland resident Tracy Sander who lost her 7-year-old-son Colin due to a 2002 automobile accident in northern Colorado.
Colin's organs were donated and used to save the lives of a mother of three children in Iowa, a father of three, also in Iowa, and a 2-year-old boy in Kansas City.
Sander said "nothing can ever take away the pain of losing our precious Colin, and we have never regretted our decision to donate. We know Colin is proud."
A quilt panel that commemorates organ or tissue donors will be on display at the MCR event. Each square of this Rocky Mountain Threads of Life quilt was created to represent the thoughts and feelings a family has about their loved one who donated or received an organ or tissue.
More than 2,200 Colorado and Wyoming residents and 119,000 people nationwide are waiting for organ transplants, and hundreds of thousands more are in need of cornea and tissue transplants, according to Donate Life America.
Information about organ and tissue donation, as well as how to sign up to become a donor at life's end, will be available at both open houses. Information is also available at DonateLifeColorado.org.
--PVHS--
