Friends and family gather around Erlanger’s flag pole to raise the “Donate Life” flag in honor of all the organ donors in 2016
Representatives of Erlanger Health System and Tennessee Donors Services along with special guests Monica and Terry Meece, Jerri Gunn and Kinah Sanders raised the “Donate Life” flag on Tuesday in honor of the 59 organ donors at Erlanger in 2016.
Once on the transplant list, a patient can wait years for a match to be found. Terry Meece found his match in his wife, Monica, in 2016. By participating in live kidney donation, Terry began the transplant process and received a new kidney the very same year he was placed on dialysis.
Rocky Trammell was 20 years old when he was in a terrible car accident on June 28, 2014. On July 3, 2014 he gave the ultimate gift of life to several people through organ donation. One of those individuals, Kinah Sander, was the recipient of one of Rocky’s kidneys. Rocky’s mother, Jerri Gunn, and Kinah met in October 2014 and have remained friends ever since.
Erlanger joins thousands of hospitals and organizations across the nation by flying the Donate Life flag in recognition of Donor Awareness Month, and in honor of the uncountable lives touched by organ, eye and tissue donation. Currently, Erlanger is the second leading donor hospital system in Tennessee resulting in 187 organs transplants and 29 kidney transplants at the region’s only Kidney Transplant Center at Erlanger in 2016.
More than 118,000 people in the United States are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant and nearly 3,000 of those live in Tennessee. Every day 22 people die waiting for a transplant, and every 10 minutes a new name will be added to a waiting list. Those who are on a kidney transplant waiting list make up 80% of the organ patient population.