While testing the brakes on an all-terrain vehicle as part of his occupation, Person crashed, severing the four main tendons and ligaments in his shoulder.

“I was told a break would have been easier to fix,” Person said. “After a month of immobilized healing, it became clear that a total reconstruction would be needed to restore the arm and shoulder function.”

What Person didn’t know was that somewhere, someone who had lost a loved one had donated tissue, making the reconstruction of his shoulder

“I was at home recovering when a postcard arrived in the mail,” Person said.  “Up to this point, the only information I had about the surgery was that it took twice as long as expected.”

The postcard he received told Person that someone donated the tissue that was used to repair his shoulder and “What a gift,” Person said. “I will remember this gift each time I throw a ball, ride a bike or just try to keep up with my active family.”

After less than six months, Person’s rebuilt shoulder is nearly 100 percent back to normal.

“My only limitation is that my fastball is not as fast as it used to be,” Person said.  He can, however, throw a ball with his sons again.

“This may not be a surprise, but I was a full anatomical donor,” Person said. “If something were to happen to me, I plan to pass this gift on to others.”

While awaiting a lung transplant, 20-year-old Helene Campbell decided to take action and increase donor awareness. Campbell and friends focused on a Twitter campaign with a specific goal in mind: getting Justin Bieber to take notice and spread the word to his 16-million followers.

Well they got Justin’s attention, and with his support via Twitter, a Canadian organ registry received more than 500 new registrants within just a few days. Check out the full story here.

The organization also recovered more bone and joint restoration tissue grafts, allowing roughly 48,000 people to regain mobility and active lives after disease or trauma last year.

Donor Alliance has also launched Donate Life Colorado and Donate Life Wyoming Facebook pages, where it will bust myths surrounding donation, and answer questions from the public.

“This experience has overwhelmed me with emotion. I can’t wait to get more involved with the cause of organ and tissue donation, and look forward to potentially assisting with an awareness program for my community’s high schools. Maybe seeing a face with a story of recovery and hope will encourage kids to check that donor box when they get their licenses! Thank you to my sponsor AlloSource for all the magic you’ve exposed me to!”

- Susan Cossabone, cellular bone transplant recipient. Read Susan’s story here.

How a woman’s leg was saved by donated tissue

The gift of donated human tissue meant that Susan Cossabone was able to avoid leg amputation and return to her passion of horseback riding following a devastating accident.

Cossabone will join 27 other float riders from around the country Jan. 2 on the Donate Life float in the Tournament of Roses Parade. The float, now in its ninth year, is a tribute to the millions of people touched by organ, tissue and blood donation.

Cossabone, of New Jersey, always had a gift with horses and a passion for riding. To fulfill that passion, she owned a 10-acre ranch, Hidden View Farm, with 26 horses. Not only did she ride for hours a day, Cossabone also rode competitively, helped retrain difficult horses, and set up an equine summer camp for at-risk and mentally and physically disabled children. Her passion kept her motivated as she managed most of the ranch alone.

This all changed on a snowy day in 2009. Driving home from dropping off a friend, a car slid out of its lane and struck Cossabone’s vehicle head on. Witnesses called 911. Due to winter weather the emergency response was slow and Cossabone’s injuries were grave: on her right leg her kneecap was ripped off, both her tibia and fibula were fractured and her foot was dislocated.

Once at the hospital, Cossabone’s leg was saved with surgically implanted titanium rods. “I hoped I would be able to walk again,” she says.

Despite this hope, Cossabone was told that she could never ride again. As a result of her injury, she had to greatly reduce the number of horses she owned, from 26 to 10. Her summer camp was unable to continue, but the remaining horses were taken care of thanks to generous help from previous campers.

In a heartbreaking development, her injury then became worse; the metal rods in her leg broke and the doctors began to talk about amputation. Cossabone refused to accept that option, but nearly every doctor she saw told her the same thing. She could not walk at all by this point, and spent all of her time in a wheelchair.

Desperate to avoid amputation, she found Dr. Mark Myerson through an Internet search.  Describing her initial conversation with Myerson, Cossabone says, “He was the only doctor who did not talk only about amputation. He promised me nothing except his help.” Cossabone did not have the option of a traditional ankle replacement because when the rods in her leg broke, the screws had become imbedded in her ankle, causing even more damage.

In April of 2010, Cossabone began the first of several surgeries with Myerson that would attempt to repair her leg. First her entire ankle was removed and bone cement was added to take the place of missing bone. In the second surgery, Dr. Myerson added bone grafts to the ankle, and in a third surgery he added AlloStem Stem Cell Bone Growth Substitute in an attempt to jumpstart her own body’s reproduction of bone in the injured leg. AlloStem, made by tissue bank AlloSource, uses adult mesenchymal stem cells derived from fat tissue, as well as bone from deceased tissue donors, which helps to stimulate natural bone formation. Cossabone calls AlloStem a “miracle little thing.”  Myerson says there were no guarantees that AlloStem would work to regrow the bone in her leg, but by December, bone began to populate in small amounts.

Cossabone was told in January 2011 that her leg no longer risked amputation. Since then, significant bone growth has continued in her injured leg. By spring 2011, Susan was able to have her knee cap replaced and she realized her initial goal, she walked again. In the fall 2011 she triumphantly reached another milestone, she returned to her passion of horseback riding.

“The trip to Dr. Myerson’s office is a five-hour round trip – with no traffic. But I don’t care. I am going to go for two, three, even four opinions before losing a limb,” Cossabone says.

The fall resulted in a broken tibia, or shin bone. Doctors recommended that she have surgery to repair the bone, as it was not likely to heal well enough on its own. The surgery involved implanting a steel plate against her bone for structural support. Additionally, after finding osteoporosis in the bone during surgery, the doctor chose to also transplant bone grafts from a deceased human donor into Jane’s injured bone to allow it to strengthen over time.

An unfamiliar concept to Jane, she questioned her doctor about the bone tissue transplant.

“I asked the doctor if compatibility studies had been done,” Jane said. “He explained that contrary to organ transplants, it was not necessary.”

The surgery was successful and next Jane began the slow healing process, which involved a walker, physical therapy and new medication to treat her osteoporosis. She could not put weight on the leg for eight weeks while it healed. However, she knew the process could have taken even longer had she not received the bone graft transplant, and she could have encountered other complications.

To Jane’s delight, following her transplant and healing period she has experienced a full recovery and is back to enjoying myriad outdoor activities in Colorado. When she was approached to write a thank-you letter to the family of the donor that provided her bone graft, she jumped at the opportunity.

“It brought tears to my eyes. It was so sweet and poignant to be able to express my appreciation for what their loved one had done and how it improved my life,” said Jane. “My husband has had a corneal transplant, which was very successful.  There was no opportunity at that time to express our thanks, which is why the letter I wrote meant so much to me.”

Jane continues that if she could, she would tell her donor: “my heartfelt thanks. I would feel privileged to donate tissue myself, especially considering the fine example I have benefitted from.”

Each year, life-saving and life-enhancing tissue is provided by approximately 30,000 tissue donors. Just one tissue donor can enhance the lives of more than 50 people.

Approximately 1.5 million allografts are transplanted each year for a variety of life-saving and life-enhancing surgeries that many are not aware of:

• bone grafts for patients with bones degenerated by cancer
• cornea transplants to help restore sight
• heart valves to replace damaged heart tissues
• skin grafts to save the lives of burn victims
• tendon, meniscus and soft tissue replacements to help people lead more active lives.

Connie says “If one life can breathe easier because of me, then I’ve gained my own measure of success. If I could speak to my donor I would say: thank you for helping to make people at a small county fair smile. You’re a success.”

“An argument erupted behind me,” Connie said. “I stood up to move to the other side of the table but my snow boot caught on the rung of the chair just as one man pushed another into me, knocking me over.”  Shortly thereafter, as Connie was still lying on the floor, a large man fell onto her legs. Connie sustained serious injuries: her left leg was broken and her right ACL was blown out.

Aside from the pain and day-to-day struggles that dealing with two injured legs presented, Connie’s injuries also meant she could not adequately do her job, which she had a great passion for. After serving as Montana’s property tax supervisor for 30 years, Connie was at the time working as the local county fair manager. Although the work was taxing (including everything from negotiating entertainment contracts to cleaning horse stalls), she absolutely loved it.

“Seeing smiling faces at a summertime county fair is one of the warmest feelings a heart can experience,” Connie said.

As a full year passed after the injury, Connie’s broken leg was casted and healed. She wore a brace on her right knee with the injured ACL, and knew her options for that leg were either to live with the injury in a brace for the rest of her life, or try an ACL transplant, using donated tissue from a deceased human donor. Eager to resume an active lifestyle and work for the county fair, Connie opted for the transplant.

The surgery didn’t require any large incisions, only 4 small holes where instruments expanded the skin around Connie’s knee for viewing and working. Doctors performed meniscus reconstruction and then anchored the donated tendon diagonally from her tibia to femur.

Following the surgery Connie was excited to get her leg back into working order. However, she was tired of the frequent doctor visits from the past year, and wasn’t pleased with the prospect of having to return again for physical therapy. Instead, she set up her own therapy routine at home.

“After a few harrowing days in a recliner I got on an exercise bike. I began slowly pedaling in front of the TV, an hour each morning and night. I had quite a setup. Morning Sudoku and coffee while pedaling to the Today Show, herbal tea and a sitcom at night,” she said. And the training worked; Connie’s doctors were very pleased with her gradual improvement in range of motion.

By Spring of 2010, after a year of working from home, Connie was elated to be able to get back to the fairgrounds and the work she loves.

“It’s now been one and a half years since my transplant.  I still get a little stiff if I don’t stay active, but I recently finished my second summertime county fair since surgery and reports from the public are that this was the best one in years,” she said.

Connie reflects on the gift of life that allowed her to return to work with earnestness and appreciation.

“I believe the body is the human’s earthly vessel.  Our deceased loved ones are hopefully in a wonderful place; their tissue is no longer needed by them.  I honor whoever is selfless enough to understand that,” Connie said. “We offer an unused blanket to a shivering homeless man, food to a starving child, spare change to a simple benefit drive or money in the collection plate at church.  We give.  It’s an odd feeling for me to be a recipient of any such gift because I’ve always been more of a giver, but I feel humbled in knowing someone gave tissue to me when I was in need.”

Connie is a registered organ, tissue and bone marrow donor. “As the old saying goes, if one life can breathe easier because of me, then I’ve gained my own measure of success. If I could speak to my donor I would say: thank you for helping to make people at a small county fair smile.  You’re a success.”

A reader recently wrote into the San Antonio Express-News to ask this question. She had “heard of families losing a loved one, being pressured to donate the deceased’s organs, then being charged for organ removal.”

In the newspaper’s response, they quote the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance: “It does not cost anything to be a donor. No costs directly related to organ and tissue donation are passed on to the family.”

Read the full article here.

A Columbus Crew rookie said on Friday that a tissue donation saved his dream of playing soccer in the professional league.

Several years ago Bernardo Anor suffered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament, 10TV’s Tracy Townsend reported on Friday.

“I received the ball I was going to turn with the ball when a guy came and tackled me from behind and he basically hit my knee,” Anor said.

Anor’s doctors said that he would be out of the game for nearly a year. His treatment options included a tissue transplant or a series of surgeries to replace the torn ligament with one from his right leg, followed by a lengthy recovery and rehab.

Anor chose the transplant. He said he was grateful for such a gift.

“Since I got that from somebody I’m willing to give it for some other people too that’s why I’m a registered donor,” Anor said.

Watch the video here.