Transplant case may lay fears to rest

By David Harsanyi

Denver Post Columnist

There are approximately 87,000 Americans waiting for organs, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

According to Colorado-based Donor Alliance, in addition to organs like your heart, lungs and eyes, you can donate 24 distinct body parts, including your veins, skin, cartilage and ribs.

Once I'm dead, I say, let them have anything they need.

Once I'm completely dead.

Doctors, please give me the courtesy of triple checking my vital signs before you start ripping out my somewhat used liver or plucking out my somewhat stigmatic eyeballs.

I genuinely hope William Rardin was provided that consideration.

Rardin shot himself in the head two weeks ago. His story tragic, the aftermath, positively bizarre.

Rardin was an organ donor. After doctors at Montrose Memorial Hospital and then St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction declared him dead, they removed his heart, liver, pancreas and kidneys.

Mark Young, the Montrose County coroner, declared Rardin's death a medical homicide, death caused by "removal of his internal organs by an organ recovery team."

The Donor Alliance, and everyone else involved in the case, contends that Rardin was properly declared dead by St. Mary's through an apnea test.

Young says that Rardin was "never seen by a neurologist and the rest of the neuro-criteria for determining brain death were not completed."

Though Young acknowledges there is no doubt in his mind that Rardin "was going to pass away within a few days," he says it's beside the point.

In a co-statement with the Donor Alliance, Young states he was more interested in bringing attention to this matter and once and for all finding a "defined standard (of death)."

Coloradans can't feel secure in the knowledge that someone in a coroner's office - or anyone in a hospital, for that matter - is searching for the definition of death. (How to Distinguish a Dead Person from a Live One - shouldn't that be the first class one takes in medical school?)

Young says that he's "finding that the standards vary from hospital to hospital in the metro region and widely around the state."

Whether Young is competent or a nincompoop, a layperson is ill prepared to judge. Until a proper investigation is concluded, and there is one underway, we are left with two possibilities.

First, and what I believe is most likely, that the doctors were competent and made the right call. The second, a far more horrific prospect, is that Young was right and Rardin had his organs snatched from him before he was technically dead.

The fact is that just talking about this issue is bewildering and disconcerting.

But most damaging, in the long term at least, is the prospect that this grisly case will further erode the public's confidence in donating organs.

"Unfortunately, it will," explains Amy Kusek, program director of the Donor Awareness Council in Denver. "We are having people call with questions and concerns and wanting to take their names off the list."

Kusek says most people don't realize that one person can potentially save the lives of up to eight people and enhance the lives of 50 people. "So, when one person says no, a lot of peoples lives can be potentially impacted."

But Young believes that while "initially it may cause a lot of distrust in the donor process, once we get this established - and hopefully the legislature and the board of medical examiners will establish standards - the people will have the confidence, and it will alleviate the fears that we have today."

If that's true, and this creepy episode can help lay to rest the fears of donors and save lives,William Rardin's life, and death, will have accomplished far more than he ever thought possible.

David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com .

Copyright © The Denver Post.

This article posted November 8, 2004.