By MICHAEL NUNES
Staff Writer
RED BANK — When Courtney Lynne Dayback passed away from cardiac arrest seven years ago while attending Brookdale Community College at the age of 19, it was a blow to her family.
“The loss of our daughter has left an empty space in our home and in our hearts,” said Dennis Dayback, Courtney’s father. In that tragedy, the family decided to donate their deceased daughter’s organs to those in need of a transplant.
“It’s bittersweet. It’s the tough thing to do, but it is also the right thing to do,” said Dennis Dayback about the choice to donate his deceased daughter’s organs, which according to him went on to save the lives of seven people.
“In our case it was something that Courtney definitely would have wanted.”
Dayback’s story was one of many celebrated April 5 in honor of National Donate Life Month by Riverview Medical Center and the NJ Sharing Network, a not-for-profit organ procurement organization in Central and North Jersey.
The event commemorates those who have given the gift of organs and tissue, those who have received a life-saving transplant, those who are currently waiting for a transplant and those who have died while waiting to receive a transplant.
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, who says he has been an advocate for making organ donations easier in the state, said, “[This issue] is about the most courageous people I could imagine, the family members of the deceased making a decision at what we could imagine the single most traumatic episode they could go through.
“When I realized New Jersey had one of the lowest organ donation registration rates a couple of years ago, I thought I could use my office to improve upon that,” he said.
“I’m proud to say that in the last few months we have really streamlined the process [by working to reduce ‘bureaucratic red tape’ for donors and partnering with the governor’s office] which has us on the cusp of starting a major push to get New Jersey’s organ donations rate up,” O’Scanlon said, stating that his goal is to see the state at the “top of the list” of organ transfer rates.
According to the NJ Sharing Network, last year for the organization organ donation rose 37 percent from 2014 and tissue donation rose 7 percent.
According to the organization, there are around 5,000 people waiting for organ transplants in New Jersey.
For O’Scanlon, spreading the news and educating residents about organ donations are key to boosting New Jersey’s donation rate.
That is what one Marlboro High School senior, Blake Rogolski, has done.
“My dad was diagnosed with Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) for his whole life, and it really didn’t start acting up until about five years ago. … He was essentially living in the hospital. It came to a point where the only way to be saved was to get a new heart,” Rogoloski said, continuing that the family was told by doctors that there was a small chance that a donor heart be available.
“Luckily for us we did get a call,” she said.
“What’s unusual about this story is that he was fortunate enough to get the transplant, and that was something that was very alarming to me and one of the things that got me into organ donations,” she said.
“My dad’s donor was 17 years old. That’s horrible. … The least I could do is give back and be involved,” Rologski said, continuing that she joined the NJ Sharing Network and became a state ambassador who spoke on organ donations.
Once she arrived at high school, she started a Donate Life club that sought to raise awareness for organ donations.
“What I learned about a lot of teenagers is not that they aren’t receptive to the cause, they just don’t know what it is. When it’s explained to these teenagers, they’re all very willing,” she said, stating that the club has around 60 members. The club organizes speakers to come into school and talk about organ donations as well as helps to celebrate the lives of the deceased donors.
For Blake, part of the struggle educating people about organ donations in fighting against the common misconceptions that some people hold.
“One of the biggest misconceptions are that the doctors will “want to kill you” to take your organs. This is not true because the organ donation team will not even know about the patient or be involved in the process until that patient is declared in a certain incurable state by the doctor. In fact, the doctors will not even know if a person is a donor or not until after this point,” she said.
