This past summer, Sam Pifer, a 21 year old adult who worked in North Carolina, came home to visit his parents in rural Pennsylvania. Three days after arriving home, he suffered a severe head injury (ironically, on June 30, my first day back to work after my kidney transplant), was declared brain dead, and his organs were harvested for donation to various recipients.

I've read 2 articles on this in local papers. The article from The Daily Item, which is available online, does have at least 1 inaccuracy, and doesn't provide enough information to give a clear picture. In addition, this article is mainly from the family's side, but the other article from The Press Enterprise (available online only by yearly subscription), gave a more balanced look at the situation (I have a "hard copy" of this).

I'll let the reader look at the article from The Daily Item, and will provide the highlights from The Press Enterprise.

The accident occurred on Interstate 180, when he was returning from Knoebel's Amusement Park, jumped out of a moving car, and sustained a severe head injury. He was transported to nearby Geisinger Medical Center. His "pupils were fully dilated and not responding to light" and he had no response to pain, according to his father, who used to work as a nurse at Geisinger. The article goes on to say that if he were declared to be brain dead, they would have a choice on whether to donate his organs.

There were 1 of 2 women seated at a desk across from Sam's room from the time the parents arrived until 30 hours later when they left (Geisinger is required by Federal Law to notify the Organ Procurement Agency of a potential organ donor). They were first approached on the afternoon of July 1 by one of the women, asking them to consider donating their son's organs (the accident occured June 30). They said no, yet the women kept approaching either Mr or Mrs Pifer to ask again. Brain death protocol was done that night, and Sam was declared legally brain dead on July 2 at 2pm. The nurses asked the parents to give them 20 minutes to "clean him up", and when they came back in the room, he was still on the ventilator. The parents figured that the staff didn't want the parents to "see him gray and cold". A Gift Of Life rep again approached them, and the father said "the answer is no". On their way home, they received a call telling them that Sam's organs "would be taken".

From the parents' standpoint, they feel deceived, as their wishes were not honored.

From a legal standpoint, the decision was not theirs, as Sam had signed an Organ Donor designation for his license, which in Pennsylvania is legally binding.

The Press-Enterprise article reports that Geisinger has since changed their policy so that Gift Of Life reps are given a seperate room away from the patient's family to do their paperwork.

My thoughts: from the information given, it seems to me that the hospital and Gift Of Life weren't aware of the Organ Donor designation status until late in the hospitalization. They did leave him on the ventilator after being declared brain dead, which suggests that at that point, the hospital/Gift of Life knew of his status on donation. However, this was Sam's decision, and not that of the parents, so this was appropriate. I can't imagine how the parents felt throughout all of this. From the articles, as well as the online comments responded to by the father, the parents are not at all against organ donation, except in this instance. It seems to me that Gift Of Life was too overbearing, which just further distanced and embittered Mr. and Mrs. Pifer, and made the situation tense. The upside to all of this: 3 people were given the gift of life.

A list of each state's organ donation laws is available by clicking here.