Sherry Long / The Daily News

Sixteen months after Henderson Police Department Patrolman Byran Vail died in a traffic accident while driving home from work, his family said they have no regrets about donating his organs.

"His whole life was to help people and that was something he always wanted to do is to donate his organs," Vail1s sister, Cristi Woodward said.

"He wanted to donate his organs so someone else could live through him. He had a heart as big as the world."

Vail died December 18, 2003 at Good Shepherd Medical Center in Longview after colliding with a tractor trailer rig on Farm-to-Market Road 1845.

Both vehicles were headed westbound on FM 1845, when Vail struck the trailer from the rear as the rig was turning into a driveway.

Within 24 hours of his being taken to the hospital, Vail was declared brain dead and the organ recovery began.

She said her family incurred no expenses related to the organ donation.

"They (Southwest Transplant Alliance) are basically saying thank you so much for saving these people's lives," Woodward said.

Normally it takes more than a year for families to meet, sometimes not even then if the donor's family or the recipient family don't know how to approach and thank each other.

Due to the heavy media coverage of her brother's death, Vail's family was able to meet some of his recipients in about two weeks.

"He is smiling down because all he would be able to see is how he was able to help so many other families," Woodward said.

VAIL'S GIFT

Regina Bennett, was able to celebrate her 25th birthday because of Vail's gift. She received one of his kidneys. In April 2001 at the age of 22 she found out she was in advanced kidney failure.

"They call it the silent killer because normally you don't know until it's too late," said Bennett, a Malakoff resident. "Until the damage is already done to the kidneys and is not reversible."

She began dialysis in October 2001 using a home machine during the middle of the night, so she could still work her full-time job during the day.

"Every day nine hours a day for two years, one month and one week," she said referring to the dialysis.

More than a year later in December 2002, Bennett's name was added to the transplant waiting list. On December 20, 2003, she got her new kidney.

"Bryan was a better match for me than my brother and my brother was tested," she said.

"It was the grace of God that I was able to have Bryan's kidney."

Four days later she went home from the hospital and spent that evening at church for carols and candlelight.

"My spiritual life in God has deepened in Him," she said since the surgery.

LIFE'S SECOND CHANCES
Beckville High School teacher and Henderson resident Julie Tanner was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at 18 years old in January 1973.

Taking insulin every day for 22 years, she was diagnosed with end stage renal disease in February 1995. She believes her kidneys began failing because of her diabetes requiring her to get a pancreas and kidney transplant.

"My kidneys were no longer able to do the two main functions it does - remove the excess fluids from your body and also removes the excess toxins from your body," she said.

Attending dialysis three days a week in the evenings after work, the machine would pump from eight to ten pounds of fluid off her system in a four-hour time period. After going on the transplant list in January 1996, she finally got her transplant on March 19, 2002.

"I came out thanking God," she said after the six-hour surgery. "Then I realized I had to do a double take and a double check - is this really happening or is it just a dream."
Tanner said she hopes to eventually meet her donor's family. She has exchanged letters with them. Her donor, a 16-year-old boy from Oklahoma killed in a four-wheeler accident, often touches her heart she said because she teaches 16-year-old students everyday.

"It's a miracle that these organs can be packed up, put on ice, put on the plane and shipped," she said.

By going through this experience, she said she is no longer afraid to die like she was in the beginning.

"I know now that I am going to live," Tanner said. "I used to be worried I would never live to see my son graduate from college, which I did. I was afraid I wouldn't live to see him get married, but I did."

Totally grateful for her second chance at life, Tanner said she encourages everyone to become an organ donor.

"If you were to be an organ donor you could continue living in another form here on this earth," she said. "I really think the family could be comforted knowing that, the loss of a
loved one is not a total loss."

Her husband went back to school to get his nursing degree after her transplant - something she said he always wanted to do to help others.

DONATING ORGANS
Vail was one of 600 Texans who annually donate their organs, so another person might live, said Pam Silvestri, Southwest Transplant Alliance spokesperson.

Each day across the nation 17 people die, while waiting for a transplant. One donor can save up to 50 people.

A donor's heart, both lungs, both kidneys, liver, pancreas and intestines can save eight different people's lives.

More lives can be saved through tissue donation - the corneas, the skin, donating bones and other tissues.

A computer matches the donor with the most compatible recipients based on each person's blood type, body size and how sick the recipient is.

Becoming an organ donor is easy, Silvestri said, all it takes is telling your friends and family you want to be an organ donor.

According to STA data, when families choose not to donate, many of them say it's because they do not know if their loved one would have wanted to donate their organs.

Silvestri said recovering the organs is just like having any other surgery.

Once the organs are removed the body is sewed back up and when the body is clothed no one would be able to tell a person is an organ donor unless the family tells them, she said.

Donors' families often express how good they feel that their choice helped saved someone else's loved one, even years after making the decision to donate their loved one's organs, Silvestri said.

Recipients tend to take very good care of themselves following a transplant because they know they have a second chance.

"Usually if they take care of themselves and take care of the organ they can live a natural lifespan," said Silvestri.

Of the 87,000 people waiting for a transplant annually almost 6,000 are children under 17 years old.

"If someone is born and they take a breath and then they can potential be a donor," Silvestri said.