About J.R. via Dancing with the Stars: J.R. Martinez is an Iraq war veteran, motivational speaker and actor on ABC’s All My Children. In April 2003, at 19 years old, J.R. was serving as a Humvee driver for the U.S. Army in Iraq when his left front tire hit a landmine. He suffered smoke inhalation and severe burns to more than 40 percent of his body. 
J.R. was immediately evacuated and sent to Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in San Antonio where he spent 34 months in recovery. Since his injury, he has undergone 33 different surgeries, including skin grafts and cosmetic surgery. While in recovery, he started speaking to other burn patients within the hospital, sharing his experiences and listening to theirs. News of his story and efforts to help others quickly spread, first on a local level and then to national circuits, leading to appearances on Oprah, 60 Minutes, CNN and more. 

Bilingual in English and Spanish, J.R. has traveled the country since 2004, spreading his message of resilience and optimism. Today he is a sought-after motivational speaker and has shared the stage with many notable individuals. In October 2008, J.R. joined the cast of ABC’s Emmy® Award-winning daytime drama All My Children as combat veteran Brot Monroe. 

Allograft skin transplants (skin from deceased tissue donors) are crucial to saving and healing burn victims, as they provide a temporary cover until the wound is ready to accept the patient’s own skin or until the patient’s limited donor sites are available for autografting.

When Devin Katacinski was just 12 years old he sustained second-degree burns after spilling a cup of scalding coffee on his arm. The coffee immediately took the skin off from the bottom of his thumb to the middle of his forearm.

Here Devin discusses his injury, and recovery, which was thanks in part to a skin transplant processed by tissue bank AlloSource. Devin reflects on how he feels to have received this gift of life from a donor.

A chat with Dr. Richard Kagan about his use of allograft tissue as a burn surgeon, and what tissue donation means to him

Dr. Kagan is the Chief of Staff at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Cincinnati and Professor of Surgery at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

Q: Describe why allograft skin is crucial to save and heal burn victims.

A: It provides a temporary wound cover until the wound is ready to accept the patient’s own skin or until the patient’s limited donor sites are available for autografting.

Q: Why do you use allograft skin for the treatment of burns, versus synthetic materials?

A: I use a combination of both, but 90% of the time fresh allograft is my preference because it will vascularize and adhere to the wound bed better. Allograft tissue creates a temporary wound cover that permits the patient’s condition to improve without the need to create an additional wound from the harvesting of autologous skin.  My use is predominantly in deep and/or extensive burns in which case the allograft tissue is potentially lifesaving, but I also use it in the treatment of small burns, abrasion injuries and infected wounds because of its reliable effectiveness.

Q: What do you look forward to in terms of new innovations and new possibilities for tissue transplantation in the future?

A: I’d like to see day when the viability of allograft skin is actually measurable and repeatable so when a surgeon wants fresh or viable skin there’s a measure that implies or guarantees a standard. I’d also like to see more techniques developed to store and maintain the viability of allogeneic tissue, so we don’t have to hope the timing of a donation and a clinical need coincide.

Q: What does organ and tissue donation mean to you, professionally and personally?

A: As a physician it means everything in terms of my ability to take care of my patients, save the lives of burn victims and facilitate meaningful recovery from small burns that may be devastating if not treated properly. It means survival, function and cosmetics.

Personally I’ve been involved in tissue banking since the early 1980s when I became the medical director of a tissue bank. I support it myself and tell others to do the same thing; I signed a donor card and I talk to all my friends and colleagues about the importance of becoming an organ and tissue donor.

On a Sunday morning at church, Devin was pouring a cup of coffee when the cup slipped and he spilled the coffee on his arm. “When it spilled on my arm, my long-sleeve shirt started clinging to my skin, and my skin was bubbling on my hand,” said Devin. The hot coffee immediately took the skin off from the bottom of his thumb, to the middle of his forearm.

Devin was rushed to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with second degree burns. “They wrapped up my arm, put chemical water on it to cool it and dumped it in a tub, which made it very numb. They also gave me pain killers that put me asleep for a few hours,” explained Devin.

Following treatment at the emergency room, Devin was referred to the Joseph M Still Burn Center at WellStar Cobb Hospital in Austell, Georgia where he remembers noticing that everyone’s burns were so much more severe than his own. Within hours, he was taken into surgery where the doctors removed the burned skin and placed allograft skin on top of it. Allograft skin is a gift of life from a deceased human donor. The days following consisted of a lot of sleep and saltine crackers, but it was the donor skin that really helped in the healing process. The proteins in the donor skin were ideal to help to heal the burn and encourage Devin’s body to regenerate new skin.

Following his surgery, Devin had zero complications with infection. “According to his doctors, Devin’s healing was amazing,” said his mother, Angie. The donor skin was kept on for about a month, after which the doctors were able to take it off because Devin’s own skin was regenerating itself. Shortly after the surgery he was already re-growing a little bit of hair on the arm, which was a strong sign of how far along he was in the healing.

While Devin was able to finally keep his arm unwrapped, it was a couple months before he could get it wet. When he was finally able to get the arm wet again it was an important milestone for Devin. A family trip to Hawaii had been planned five months before the accident, and Devin was cleared for water right before the trip. He was delighted to take advantage of the ocean, scuba diving, snorkeling and even was able to hold his breath underwater for almost a minute. A personal record.

Devin’s note to the family of his tissue donor sums up how thankful he is for their gift. “I am writing to thank you for the kind and generous gift of tissue donation from your loved one. I am so sorry for your loss, but I want you to know that your decision to donate has changed my life in a very positive way. I needed a tissue transplant because I burned myself with coffee. Since the transplant I have been able to play and run around a little more. For this I am grateful to you and your loved one. My family and I will remember your act of kindness and generosity.”

Devin has never needed any additional skin and you wouldn’t even notice that anything happened to his arm today. He is a busy 13-year-old and is looking forward to his first missionary trip to New York City in July.

Kudos to the Lubbock FOX network for shedding light on this issue, noting “a tissue donor has the ability to help a burn victim or give a star athlete a chance to return to their sport after a major injury like tearing of an ACL. Across the nation there is a massive demand for skin as well as sports-related orthopedic tissue.”

Are you a tissue donor? If not, sign up with Donate Life America.

A short tour of the leading laboratory where AlloSource develops new life-saving and life-enhancing tissue allografts

Discover the laboratory where AlloSource ensures the safety of its allografts

Take a look inside AlloSources cutting-edge stem cell laboratory, where the company is developing new types of allografts that promote tissue regeneration

When helping was critical, the AlloSource team sprang into action.

AlloSource is one of the largest suppliers of allograft skin for burns in the nation. Burn skin is central to our mission and helps us play a part in saving people’s lives each and every day.

We service major medical centers in our core communities as well as in other communities across the nation and AlloSource is first to get the call when a crisis event happens. On January 26 we got the call again.

U.S. Air Force C-130 airplanes landed in Tampa, Florida last week with severely burned survivors of the Haitian earthquake inside. The patients were immediately transferred to Tampa General Hospital, one of our large allograft burn skin customers. The procurement coordinator at Tampa General was looking for all the skin that we could provide them to cope with their immediate and future needs. Tampa has implemented their disaster plan for burns and is now working around the clock on surgeries in the burn center.

Immediately the AlloSource team sprang into action releasing 55 square feet of skin. The medical records team, PC and quality worked to clear multiple donors which allowed us to have two major shipments to Tampa general on Wednesday and Thursday to help them through their weekend surgeries. Customer service and distribution did incredible work picking the orders and getting them to Tampa in a timely manner. Operations is looking at their capabilities and is ramping up to be able to process the additional donors that we hope to receive. Medical records, PC and quality are looking at system changes to be able to release skin ahead of the rest of the donor. We are also exploring the ability to release skin under an “emergent need” basis, much like we release fresh skin or cartilage. In short, the AlloSource team once again put our mission into action doing everything we could for people in dire need.

None of this could have been possible without our OPO partners jumping on board as well. Thank you for your immediate response to this crisis. It has saved lives. We will continue to call on you to help us with the situation as it progresses. For the next 30-60 days please send all shipments of split thickness burn skin to AlloSource to continue to help with this humanitarian crisis.

AlloSource and our committed OPO members met our mission objectives we were able to positively help some of the victims of this terrible crisis. We continue to stay very close to the people at Tampa General regarding their allograft skin needs and remain ready to assist them in any way possible. We will keep you posted on the situation.

Or, learn more about skin allografts used for the treatment of burns, including function, structure, donor recovery and clinical application.

Amidst the constantly changing world of medicine, innovative research from some of the world’s leading surgeons is finding new ways to use donated human tissue to treat a host of medical conditions.

Registered donors and their families donate this allograft tissue in the same way organs are donated. It is used in many life-saving and enhancing medical procedures already, with numerous new opportunities on the horizon.

“Many people don’t realize it, but donated human tissue is used in many surgical applications, saving peoples’ lives and limbs daily,” says Dr. Ross Wilkins from the Denver Clinic for Extremities at Risk, a highly specialized group in the management of conditions and diseases that place people at risk of losing a limb. “Allograft tissue is used to replace damaged structures in the body, from the ligaments and tendons of major league sports players, bones and joints of military men and women, to the musculoskeletal structures, teeth, skin and spinal components of average citizens.”

AlloSource, one of the nation’s largest accredited tissue processing facilities, recently provided tissue to a man severely injured on a construction site. After a crane on the site hit a power line, Manuel Salazar was struck by 150,000 volts and was severely burned and lost both arms and both legs. First, allograft skin was used to cover his severe burns, then allograft bone and tissue were used to help build him a new arm and shoulder, so he could be successfully be fitted for a prosthetic arm and once again complete everyday tasks such as brushing his teeth and scratching his head.

“Donated human tissue has completely changed my life,” says Salazar. “Although I was forever changed by my accident, the new possibilities that allograft tissue have provided for me have restored my hope.”

On New Years Day Salazar will be sponsored by AlloSource to appear in the 2010 Rose Parade aboard the Donate Life float entitled New Life Rises. Salazar will join 23 other riders representing millions of people touched by organ and tissue donation, including donor families, living donors, transplant recipients and transplant candidates.

Dr. Wilkins and plastic surgeon Dr. William Brown operated on Salazar and have innovative surgeries for many patients using human allograft tissue for promoted healing, growth or reconstruction.

“The possibilities for the use of human tissue in modern medicine are truly thrilling,” Wilkins says. “Soon, we will know more about the growth biology of the human body, about regenerating bone and tissue and using donor stem cells to re-grow physical structures. We’ll have more of the information we need to achieve long-term success with groundbreaking procedures such as full limb transplantation.”

Currently, physicians of different specialties are working together to solve some of the most difficult issues in limb reconstruction. Surgical teams from the Denver Clinic for Extremities at Risk and Colorado State University Animal Cancer Center have devised a method for live, full joint transplants. Additional work is needed to learn how to safely block rejection.

“As more people learn about these remarkable discoveries and choose to be tissue donors, we will be able to find new ways to maximize those gifts and surgical teams will be able to provide patients with restored function and movement we only dream about today,” says Thomas Cycyota, chief executive officer of AlloSource.