Recently someone at another board I’m on died, and I was a little puzzled at this announcement there: “…had a respiratory depression that caused a heart attack, anoxic brain damage and major organ failure <snip>In accordance with his wishes, he shared the gift of life through organ and tissue donation.”
I didn’t want to look like a total dick there, but I was curious just what kind of shape the organs in question might be in to donate to anyone else.
Organ and tissue donations can include things like eyes, kidneys, bone marrow - that may not have been damaged by the organ failure, or if they were harvested quickly enough the damage would be minimal.
My wife’s grandfather died from a stroke in his early 80s; he was on life-support for about a day before the family decided to pull the plug. I remember my father-in-law having a conversation with the doctor when they were making the decision, about organ donation; the doctor said that, given his age, most of his organs wouldn’t be suitable for donation, but they could, at a minimum, accept his corneas for transplant.
Many surgical grafts are made from bone, skin, and tendons. When you think of organ donation, you usually think kidneys and liver, but a lot can be done with the rest of you, too.
Corneas, mainly.
Organ and tissue donation also also includes donation for research, not just transplantation. My brother was in pretty bad shape when he passed away, and his body was donated to a tissue bank. We got a nice note from the bank later that said what research areas his donation was being used for. It was kind of cool to be told that.