Southwest Transplant Alliance

"I was looking at a picture of the person who changed my life, the person whose family I prayed for every day," said Lawrencia, 18. "She saved my life."

Sabrina, a 15-year-old from Las Cruces, N.M., died Feb. 15, 2006, from injuries sustained in an all-terrain vehicle accident. She was declared brain dead the day after the accident, but her family kept her alive so her organs could be harvested for donation.

As Sabrina took her last breaths, Lawrencia was fighting her own battle for life. Her kidneys were badly damaged, and her traditional, thrice-weekly dialysis sessions weren't working. Her mother and other family members were tested to see if they could donate a kidney, but no one was a match.

Lawrencia, who has the neural tube defect spina bifida, had severe kidney damage from a bladder problem.

On Feb. 14, 2006, Lawrencia's doctors told she would have to have an "arteriovenous graft," or artificial vein, installed in her arm, and Lawrencia didn't take the news well.

I was just tired of everything," she said. "I was frustrated. I was fed up. I was starting to give up."

It was emotional day for Lawrencia and her mother, Rolanda Keys.

"I took a few minutes to just sit and pray," Rolanda Keys said. "Five minutes later, the phone rang and they told us they found a kidney for Lawrencia."

Turn of events

It was a joyous day for the Keys family but a devastating time for Sabrina's family.

Her mother, Edna Guerra, said one of her sons and her husband convinced her to donate her only daughter's organs during Sabrina's final hours.

"I was raised Catholic, and in the old days, organ donation was frowned upon," Guerra said recently in a telephone interview from her home in Las Cruces. "I didn't want to do it for religious reasons, but my son kept telling me it's what Sabrina would want. He reminded me that she would want to help others."

Guerra later learned that today's Roman Catholic Church and many other religions support organ donation.

"Knowing that the church approved made me feel even better about my decision," she said. "Like my son said - it's what Sabrina would have wanted. She was the kind of person that would have given her last dollar to a poor man."

Lawrencia received her kidney transplant on Feb. 16, 2006, and today, her prognosis is good.

She graduated from Memorial High School in Port Arthur in May and just wrapped up her first semester of college locally. She is working toward a criminal justice degree.

Lawrencia said college would have been next to impossible with her heavy dialysis schedule, which was three hours a day, three days a week.

"I have my own schedule now," she said. "I don't have to live by the clinic's schedule now. I'm living a more normal life than I did before."

Lawrencia has communicated with Sabrina's family through cards and letters, and she hopes to meet them someday, "when they are ready," she said.

"I want them to know that I am sorry that Sabrina passed away," Lawrencia said. "I want to say I'm sorry that they have to grieve every day, but I also want them to know that I appreciate what they did for me."

Guerra acknowledged that she received Lawrencia's card - and she replied Thursday.

"I wrote that I am happy she's doing so well," Guerra said. "I'm ready to communicate with them now. It's been hard. I still do a lot of crying, and I'm grateful that Lawrencia and her family have given me the space I need."

The Giving Tree

Guerra said she also has been in contact with the Austin man who received Sabrina's liver.

Lawrencia and Sabrina's families said they shared their stories in hopes more people will register to become organ donors or that families will choose to donate their loved one's organs.

Registering as an organ, tissue and eye donor is easier than ever after the Texas Department of State Health Services introduced a revamped online organ donor registry this month.

The program was renamed Glenda Dawson Donate Life-Texas in memory of the late state representative who had a kidney transplant and championed the organ donation cause.

The Web site, www.DonateLifeTexas.org, is a one-stop shop for potential organ donors and their families. On this site, Texans can sign up to be organ donors and read all about the process.

Those interested in organ donation can register through this database. The database replaces organ donor cards.

"There are people who stated their intentions to be organ donors years ago on their driver's licenses, but that system is no longer in use and it never worked very well," said Pam Silvestri, public affairs director of the Southwest Transplant Alliance in Dallas. "This system is fool-proof. If you sign up, you're a donor. Nobody can change that but you."

Silvestri said once a person registers, it's legally binding. Before, family members could override the decision.

Silvestri said the organ-donor feature was removed from Texas driver's licenses to quell the "unfounded fear" that potential donors might not be resuscitated in cases of severe injury in order to harvest the organs.

Those who wait

More than 7,000 Texans are waiting for organ, tissue and eye transplants, according to 2006 Texas Department of State Health Services figures.

Locally, there are about 100 patients lined up in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area alone, Silvestri said.

Three Southeast Texas families grieving the inevitable loss of a loved one opted to donate the person's organs between June 26 and July 2, according to the Southwest Transplant Alliance.

"That was an incredible weekend for us," Silvestri said, adding the Beaumont area averages between four and seven donor cases a year.

One of the three families was the Evans family of Lumberton.

Thomas Clinton Evans, or "Clint" as he was best known by his family and friends, committed suicide June 30.

Evans was a volunteer with the Lumberton Fire Department and donated blood religiously. His family described him as the type who put others before himself.

"If anybody needed anything, he was there in a heartbeat," said his mother, Jianna Evans. "He was always doing stuff to help other people."

She made the decision to donate her son's organs because she believes that's what he would have wanted.

"It wasn't an option for me," she said. "It was a given."

"Donating his organs embodied everything that Clint was," said his sister, Andrea Collins. "He lived to help others and risked his life every day to save people's lives and property."

Collins is expecting her first child, a boy she will name Jacob Clinton after her little brother.

The Evans family learned that someone in Dallas received Clint's heart, but they don't have any other details.

"It's still early," Jianna Evans said. "But I look forward to hearing from them and one day meeting them.

"Truthfully, I wish I could have my son back, but I can't, so it will be wonderful to hear that a part of my son is still alive. It will be comforting news to all of us.

"If we can spare another family from going what we've gone through, then it was all worth it."