Southwest Transplant Alliance

When injuries from a crash with a drunken driver killed 19-year-old Karmen Bayless on Jan. 12, 2005, her mother, Longview resident Deborah Bayless, made an important decision. She chose to donate her daughter's organs for transplant.

This weekend, two years later, Bayless is going to Garland to meet with four of the five people who received her daughter's organs.

"I'm very excited to meet the people that my daughter saved and get to know them. I consider them special people," Bayless said.

The woman who breathes with the donated lungs has become a friend. Sherri Herring, who lives in Garland, said she sent a letter to the Southwest Transplant Alliance to be passed on to Bayless. Several weeks later, she received a telephone call.

"She called and said, 'I think you may have my daughter's heart,' " Herring said, "I said, 'No, ma'am, but I may have your daughter's lungs.' "

Herring has been instrumental in coordinating the meeting and is almost as excited as Bayless.

"We're all a part of the circle of life ... and it all starts with Karmen," she said.

Bayless has been in some contact with other recipients, but this will be the first time she will meet the beneficiary of her daughter's liver, kidney and pancreas, and heart. Bayless has not been able to contact the recipient of the other kidney.

Bayless is most excited about meeting the woman who received her daughter's heart, but also admitted to being nervous.

"My daughter always had a tender, caring heart. It's going to be hard," Bayless said.

"It's overwhelming, it really is. ... It's hard to know that my daughter is dead and these people are alive because of it."

Karmen Bayless is survived by her daughter, who is now 5. Bayless said it is partially because of her granddaughter that she is glad she chose to donate her daughter's organs.

"I want my grandbaby to know that, yes, this man took her mother, but this is what she did," Bayless said.

There are 7,303 Texans are on a waiting list for a transplant, according to to the Southwest Transplant Alliance Web site, www.organ.org. For information, call (800) 788-8058.