For several years, Charlie Sang of Louisville didn’t have a heartbeat. He relied on a ventricle assist device (VAD) that gave him limited mobility and had to be plugged in every night. Sang was eligible for a heart transplant and had come close to receiving one three times, but compatibility issues and a COVID-19 diagnosis—although he never showed symptoms—dashed those hopes.
Then, he got a call from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the first days of 2021, and with that call came the possibility that the fourth time may be the charm.
“I didn’t even want to tell anyone about the fourth one because I hate to cry wolf each time and not get it,” Sang said from his Louisville home with his daughter, Taylor, by his side. “You [figuratively] drive 90 miles an hour to Nashville, but you come back home 65 miles an hour—all slow and bummed out.
“I wasn’t going to believe it until I recovered, until the next day, until when I woke up. It’s hard to believe you got it until you actually do have it.”
Taylor Sang best summed up her feelings in a February post to the Donate Life Facebook page. “His successful surgery is an ABSOLUTE MIRACLE, and that fact will never be lost on me. My dad called me the day after his transplant and said, ‘Baby girl, I get to walk you down the aisle.’ Think of how many thousands more daughters want that call.”
Taylor Sang recently had been crowned United States of America (USOA) Ms. Kentucky 2021 and made organ donation her pageant platform, even becoming a Donate Life Ambassador. Donate Life is a partnership between Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) and Kentucky Circuit Clerks’ Trust For Life to promote awareness of organ and tissue donation. “They’re saving people like my dad. It’s so scary having a parent on the transplant list because there’s so much uncertainty,” Taylor said. “It’s organizations like KODA [and Trust For Life] who are promoting awareness, promoting donations, that make people’s lives change on a dime.”
More than 39,000 organ transplants from 18,300 donors occurred nationally in 2020. In Kentucky, 535 people received new organs from 178 donors. That’s a 30 percent increase from 2019.
Crysta McGee, Donate Life Kentucky’s communications and marketing manager, said the number of people who sign up for the Kentucky Organ Donor Registry has grown in recent years. They can register through Donate Life Kentucky’s website (donatelifeky.org) or at their circuit court clerk’s office when renewing or applying for a driver’s license.
To date, Kentucky has 2.1 million registered donors, which translates to about 60 percent of the Commonwealth’s population.
“It’s a great number, but that also means that 40 percent isn’t registered, and that’s where we’re trying to reach out,” McGee said.
McGee added that there are still 110,000 people across the United States waiting for an organ transplant. About 1,000 of them are from Kentucky.
She said the challenge is to dispel the myths surrounding organ and tissue donation. Chief among them is the belief that doctors won’t work to save the life of a person if it’s found that person is registered to be a donor.
“Doctors and nurses don’t know if you’re registered,” McGee said. “When a person is considered legally dead … that’s when KODA gets called in.”
Another myth is that the wealthy and celebrities get priority on the registry, or that chronic diseases exclude potential donors from donating. “That does not matter,” McGee said. “The things that they do look at are a person’s size, blood type, tissue type and the distance from a potential transplant recipient.” One exception is if a donor tested positive for COVID-19, due to the uncertainty of the virus’ long-term effects.
“So, we encourage everyone—no matter age, race, sex, health status or anything like that—to register as a donor if you want to save lives in the future,” she said. “One organ donor can save eight lives through solid organ transplants, which is your heart, your lungs, your kidneys, your liver, your pancreas and small bowel. You can help 75-plus people through tissue donation. Some things that can be donated are corneas, skin, tendons, ligaments … and bone.”
Many times, recipients and donor families will reach out to each other, which can be a rich source of healing for both parties. Donate Life will help facilitate those connections if both parties agree to it.
Charlie Sang said he intends to try to contact his donor’s family. At this time, all he is allowed to know is that the heart belonged to a 20-year-old. He said he will be forever grateful yet saddened by the donor family’s loss.
“It seems so daggone unfair,” Sang said. “I think about this every day, all day long. I think about how it’s unfair because I’m probably older than maybe the parents are. I’m thankful, but it seems unfair that I’m alive at 61, and somebody who is 20 has passed away.”
Sang will not allow the donor’s gift to have been given in vain. By April, he was back at work, managing his company, Sang Tree Service, and being grateful for a new lease on life.
In the meantime, Taylor will continue to spread the word about saving lives through organ and tissue donation, and growing the Kentucky Donor Registry.
“The more people who are registered, the more dads who can be saved,” she said.
For more information on organ and tissue donation, check out Donate Life Kentucky’s website at donatelifeky.org.