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Mayors relay the message of organ gifts

Mayors relay the message of organ gifts

National event is aimed at promoting donations

Saturday, July 1, 2000

Beatty

Dispatch Staff Reporter

A patient at Ohio State University Medical Center

received a healthy liver

yesterday. Another got a new pancreas. Three

others received kidney

transplants.

But Adam Burkhart, 17, of Zanesville was not among

the lucky five to be taken

off the list of those awaiting organs.

Since March, Burkhart and his mother, , have

lived in the hospital,

praying for the donated heart that will allow him

to go home.

" (The doctors) don't want him to go home because

he is in danger of sudden

death,'' Mrs. Burkhart said, surrounded by Adam's

three younger siblings and

father, Mike.

The Burkhart family and others affected by the

need for organ donation joined

Columbus Mayor B. yesterday

afternoon at City Hall in an

effort to educate people about the issue.

They spoke as part of the Millennium Mayorthon, a

6,000-mile relay of more

than 2,000 mayors who are trying to shed light on

the need for organ and

tissue donation. The relay reached the mayors of

Columbus, Grove City and

Urbancrest yesterday.

The Mayorthon, a creation of the American Red

Cross and the American Society

of Transplant Surgeons, began April 16 when San

Francisco Mayor Willie Brown

picked up the symbolic staff, which is passed from

mayor to mayor. The relay

will end Labor Day when the staff reaches the

hands of Washington, D.C.,

Mayor A. .

Every two hours, one of the 70,000 people on

waiting lists nationwide dies

because of the lack of a donor, according to the

American Society of

Transplant Surgeons. More than 500 people in

central Ohio are waiting for

organs.

The decision to harvest organs ultimately falls

with the next of kin, said

Cookie Armstrong of Cardington, Ohio. Although

discussing organ donation can

be awkward, it's the way to truly know a loved

one's wishes, she told the

audience at the Mayorthon.

Armstrong, 48, faced the crucial decision on a

nightmarish evening in

December 1993. Her 18-year-old son was

riding in his girlfriend's car

when it went off the road and struck a tree. Three

hospitals and 14 1/2 hours

later, a doctor at Grant Medical Center declared

brain-dead. Without

hesitation, Armstrong and her husband allowed the

hospital to harvest organs.

" Each time one of us had renewed our licenses or

when the kids had gotten

theirs for the first time, we would talk about

donation,'' she said. " It was

like our healing process had begun right there

because we were following

through with Mike's wishes.''

Because of a 19-year-old man who died in a 1998

motorcycle accident, Jim

Wirth, 49, was able to attend the Mayorthon when

it arrived yesterday morning

in his hometown of Grove City. Wirth needed a

donated liver because blood

transfusions in 1977 gave him hepatitis C.

The donor's mother wrote him a letter several

months after the transplant.

" He had told her he wanted his organs donated if

something would happen to

him because they wouldn't help him in heaven,''

Wirth said. " It gave her

great comfort.''

Wirth has been able to celebrate his 25th wedding

anniversary and see his son

graduate from Ohio University, events he said he

would have taken for granted

before his illness.

The Burkharts said they are hoping a new heart

will mean Adam will recover

fully and experience such events. He suffers from

genetic cardiomyopathy, a

disease in which the heart pumps inefficiently.

Even his brother Ian, 12, and sisters Jenna, 10,

and Malia, 14 -- who said

Adam torments them when he's healthy -- have been

missing Adam during his

almost four-month hospital stay.

" You never realize that you want them home because

you always want them to go

away,'' Malia said. " We just want things to go

back to normal.''

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