Free Republic

The story of Corp. Benjamin Kopp's life is one about completely dedicating yourself to your country and others. Kopp, of Rosemount, gave his life serving his country. The 21-year-old died July 18 from injuries he suffered after being shot in the leg in Afghanistan while saving the lives of six of his fellow soldiers on July 10. If giving his life wasn't the ultimate sacrifice, even after his death, Kopp kept on giving. Judy Meikle, of Chicago, says she has been long awaiting a heart transplant. Two weeks ago the 57-year-old got a call from her close friend Maria Burud,...

The parents of an 18-year-old Ohio man who suffered a brain injury while snowboarding claim in a lawsuit that doctors at a northwestern Pennsylvania hospital intentionally killed him so they could harvest his organs. The lawsuit claims that Hamot Medical Center doctors and a representative of the Center For Organ Recovery and Education caused Gregory Jacobs' death by administering medication and by removing his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate. "But for the intentional trauma or asphyxiation of Gregory Jacobs, he would have lived, or, at the very least, his life would have been prolonged," the lawsuit said. The suit...

Senate President Richard Codey said yesterday he has introduced a bill to require drivers to decide whether they want to become donors before they can obtain or renew their license. The "New Jersey Hero Act" also would make New Jersey the first state in the nation to incorporate organ donation education into the high school curriculum beginning in the 2008-09 school year. "For the first time anywhere in this country, we are mandating a discussion -- one that can and will save lives and make everyone a hero," said Codey (D-Essex).

“Momma, they got me a heart.” Those are the words Jessica Hensley heard Monday when her phone rang at 1 a.m. in her Kingston home. Jessica’s 12-year-old daughter, Jordon Hensley, called from Vanderbilt University Medical Center with the news that her cardiologist needed her to get ready for a heart transplant. “Jordon called me before the doctor did,” Jessica said Tuesday in a phone call to The Oak Ridger. “She told me, ‘The doctor’s about to call you. I am so excited.’” Jessica said, “We are so thankful to the Paine family. I have not got an official word (about...

The Inconvenient Truth About Organ Donations Physician sounds alarm about unethical or at least highly questionable practices of organ transplant industry By Steve Jalsevac September 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - There has been growing concern over the past several years about increasingly aggressive measures undertaken to harvest human organs from dying patients. Dr. John Shea, a Toronto physician who has specialized in researching the issue, has just completed a report, Organ donation: The inconvenient truth, that sounds an alarm about the unethical or at least highly questionable practices of the organ transplant industry. The article is published in the September issue...

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Twenty years ago a North Dakota National Guard fighter jet scrambled with a cooler containing an infant heart for a 5-month-old boy in California. The heart still beats inside Andrew De La Pena, who's now a student at Loyola University in New Orleans. He will be in Fargo this week with his parents. They'll meet the anonymous family whose decision to donate their infant's organs helped De La Pena live. "I have often wondered what happened and if he's OK," said Col. Bob Becklund, who flew the F-4. "And to hear now that he's survived all...

A man whose family agreed to donate his organs for transplant upon his death was wrongly declared brain-dead by two doctors at a Fresno hospital, records and interviews show. Only after the man's 26-year-old daughter and a nurse became suspicious was a third doctor, a neurosurgeon, brought in. He determined that John Foster, 47, was not brain-dead, a condition that would have cleared the way for his organs to be removed, records of the Feb. 21 incident show. "It kind of blew my mind," said the daughter, Melanie Sanchez, "like they were waiting like vultures, waiting for someone to die...

This morning, I renewed my driver's license. Of course, on the application they asked me if I wanted to donate my organs in the eventuality of my death. Being an altruist by nature, my first reaction was, why not, it could help somebody. But then a fear crept into my head - what if I was seriously ill, and "they" decided to hasten my as of yet not-inevitable death to harvest my organs? While my first reaction was that is absurd, I decided to chose "no" given the well grounded fear that in today's society, where life is given no...

One week after a little girl was hit by a mini-van in Lackawanna County, family members are making her funeral arrangements. They want everyone to know that her final gift may help save the lives of other children. Mia Diaz, 8, of Olyphant died over the weekend. The third grader at Mid Valley Elementary School loved to cheer for the Olyphant Lions, an area junior football team. She died nearly a week after being hit by a mini-van along East Scott Street in Olyphant, not far from where she lived. She'd been walking to the corner bus stop. Mia's mother,...

Family and friends of local actor, activist Albert Soto are outraged, want guidelines changed. no allowed to copy, link here: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/news/local/112905a1_albertsoto

St. Vincent Medical Center, one of the largest organ transplantation centers in the state, has suspended its liver program after discovering that its doctors improperly arranged for a transplant to a Saudi national using an organ that should have gone to a much higher priority patient at another hospital, officials said. Hospital staff members then falsified documents several times to cover up the alleged maneuver, pretending that the transplant was for a patient who was near the top of the regional waiting list, hospital President and Chief Executive Gus Valdespino confirmed Monday.

Someone died in North Carolina today ... I don't know exactly who, but the death has impacted my family, nevertheless. I do know that this death was the result of an automobile accident yesterday, but whether male or female, young or old, I do not know. And I don't know when the decision was made for this person to be an organ donor, or by whom ... I only know that of all the thousands on the waiting list for kidneys, someone in North Carolina was the perfect match for someone in my family, already months on dialysis ... waiting...

Capt. Lisa Smurr, left, shares a laugh with Capt. Lisa Horak, who gave her a kidneymore than six years after they met at an Army officer camp. An Army nurse's promised gift to another Soldier is proving a good match. When Capt. Lisa Smurr couldn't locate a healthy kidney to replace her failing pair last year, a nurse at Walter Reed Army Medical Center wouldn't offer simple condolences. On July 22, Capt. Lisa Horak gave Smurr an extended lease on life when her left kidney became the other's second on the right. The average kidney transplant survives 18 years. A...

DENVER -- Doctors who postponed a kidney transplant between two men who met through a private organ donation Web site decided Tuesday to allow the operation to proceed, despite legal and ethical concerns about the surgery. The operation, scheduled for Wednesday, is believed to be the first transplant arranged through a Web site designed to match organ donors with recipients, said Jeremiah Lowney, medical director of MatchingDonors.com, where the two men made contact. Doctors at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center initially postponed the procedure to replace Bob Hickey's kidney as he was in a hospital room with IVs running from his...

Watching CNN this morning, right after 7 AM, I was looking at the stand-up in front of the hospital where Clinton is getting his surgery. Right behind the reporter, a van pulled up. On the van, it said Express Organ Delivery. While the story was being reported, two people came out of the hospital, then took a styrofoam cooler into the hospital. This was right at 7 AM. What was in the cooler? A stand-by heart for Clinton, just in case something went wrong? I can't get at the CNN video of the report.

CHICAGO, June 14 (UPI) -- U.S. doctors suggested Monday that one way to obtain more donor organs is to assume people would want their organs to be used by someone else. At the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, members considered a resolution urging states and the federal government to copy European laws that assume people want to be organ donors unless they specifically decline. "We have to do something to change the system," said Dr. Stephen Schwartz, a psychiatrist in Huntington Valley, Pa. "We are standing by idly while people are dying. We can't stand by and let...

Nicked for saving a life No regrets ... Mike yesterday By JOHN ASKILLand MARTYN SHARPEAN ambulance driver has been charged with speeding as he delivered a liver for a life-saving transplant. The decision to prosecute was branded a disgrace last night by his union and an MP. They said Mike Ferguson was clearly on an emergency mission. Mike, 56, was snapped doing 104mph by a camera on the A1. He had blue lights flashing on his ambulance service Vauxhall Vectra, which is converted for transporting organs and blood. And it happened at 3.30am, when traffic was light and road...

Jan. 30 – The AMA has expressed its outrage at a proposed law in New Mexico that could make some motorcyclists into forced organ donors. The proposal, introduced in the New Mexico Legislature by state Sen. Allen Hurt (R-Waterflow), would allow the harvesting of organs from any motorcyclist who doesn't wear a helmet and is declared brain dead as a result of an accident. Hurt's bill, designated Senate Bill 239, specifically states that: "a person operating a motorcycle without a helmet and who, as the result of an accident, is pronounced brain dead pursuant to Section 12-2-4 NMSA 1978 by...

<p>Matthew Jacob Garcia will never know his mother, a young woman who loved the sea, country music and her soul mate -- her junior high school sweetheart and husband of just one year.</p> <p>But perhaps one day he will understand that his mother's death, only three hours after his premature birth, helped four other people who now have a second chance at life thanks to her healthy kidneys, liver and heart.</p>