Organ donations save lives

GRATEFUL—From right, Shirley Pirozzi, Jackie Colleren and Pam Endo present a Donate Life flag to Agoura Hills City Councilmember Harry Schwarz. The flag will hang at Agoura Hills City Hall throughout the month of April. Shirley Pirozzi blacked out while driving to her Oak Park home in December 2004, but the woman's brush with death after her car hit a tree on Kanan Road turned out to be the least of her problems. The accident uncovered a real threat to her life—liver disease.

So began Pirozzi's odyssey of waiting for an organ transplant.

The wait was long and complicated. She was admitted to the hospital several times. Eventually, when her kidneys failed, Pirozzi was hospitalized at UCLA Medical Center, going in and out of comas.

At that point a double transplant was necessary to save Pirozzi's life, and the window of time to find matching organs was a narrow one. After she'd spent 70 days in the hospital, doctors estimated she had only five days to live. But the necessary organs became available, and on May 30, 2006, Pirozzi received liver and kidney transplants.

Pirozzi owes her cure to a stranger's foresight. A man from Wisconsin had registered with Donate Life, a nonprofit organization that matches dying patients with organ and tissue donors.

Pirozzi told her story to the Agoura Hills City Council on March 25 to encourage people to register as organ donors through Donate Life California. Pirozzi, Pam Endo of Agoura Hills and Jackie Colleren of Thousand Oaks presented a "Donate Life" flag to the Agoura Hills City Council, and Mayor Denis Weber declared April "Donate Life" month.

Since her transplant, Pirozzi said her life has changed "drastically."

"I was the beneficiary of (a man's) legacy to the world," she said. "Up to 50 other people also benefited from this legacy." She now works for Donate Life California as a way to help save lives through organ, tissue and eye donations.

Donate Life California was launched in 2004 and has a registry of 4.6 million donors. According to its website at www .donatelifecalifornia.org, more than 21,000 Californians are waiting for an organ transplant. One-third of that number will die waiting for a matching donor. One organ donation can save up to eight lives and enhance another 50 through tissue donation.

"Every day is a gift, and every day is a risk," Pirozzi said at the council meeting. "The life you save (as an organ donor) could be one of your loved ones'," Pirozzi said.

People can register to be an organ donor at the Department of Motor Vehicles when applying for or renewing a driver's license, or at www.donatelifecalifornia.org.