A senior project with heart

May 14, 2004

By ABBY SOUZA

Summerville High School senior Lissie Urquhart has been visiting as many community organizations and school classrooms as she could to talk about a subject close to her heart.

And her father's heart, too.

Dave Urquhart, Lissie's father and Summerville High's principal, got a new heart almost two years ago. The transplant operation ended a 12-year struggle with his own failing organ.

Dave said he was only able to get this heart because of a still-unknown man or woman who elected to be an organ donor and advised their family.

"One person can save the life of 50 people," Lissie said, referring to the various organs and tissues from one body that can be transplanted.

As her senior project, Lissie worked to increase the number of organ donors in the area through the presentations. She also collected donations for her father's run in the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco this Sunday (See sports, Page 1B.)

Lissie began her presentations with statistics she found through the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit, scientific and educational organization that runs the country's only organ collection and transplant network.

In 2003, there were 25,451 organ transplant surgeries nationally, but 5,989 patients died waiting for organs. Every 13 minutes, a name is added to the national transplant waiting list and about 85,000 people are now on that list waiting for transplants.

More than 17,00 Californians on that list, Lissie said.

"The only reason I'm here today is based on someone saying, ‘Hey, I'll donate,' " Dave said at one of Lissie's presentations.

While her father told his personal account of the donation and transplant procedure, Lissie spent her time discussing the importance of organ donation and incorrect assumptions that many have about the process.

For example, Lissie explained that if people want to donate their organs after death, having the tiny pink "donor" sticker on their driver's license is a good step, but not enough. People also need to let family members know their wishes.

"If your family doesn't know," she said, "they're probably going to say no."

Lissie said many people are surprised that family members still have the final say on organ donation, even if a donor sticker is on their license.

Lissie passed out donor stickers at most presentations, as well as a family donor agreement so families can decide what they want done with their organs before it is too late to ask.

"If your family doesn't know, that's a pretty difficult time to make a decision like that," Dave said. "You really need to talk to your family."

Students and organization members asked questions at each presentation, the Ur-quhart team said. Many wondered if Dave knows anything about his own donor, whether the donor was a man or woman or if he has taken on any of the donor's traits.

"I don't really know anything except we have the same blood type," Dave said. He also knows the donor was a little younger than he.

As far as taking on any traits, Dave said, "I am a little more emotional, but that is probably because of everything I've been through. It's been a long ride."

Contact Abby Souza at asouza@uniondemocrat.com

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This article posted July 6, 2004.