OREM – The city of Orem declared April 12 Organ Donor Awareness Day.
Utah Valley University held an event where people learned more about signing up to become a donor.
Former student Lauren Scoffied Warner shared her story. After living nine years with uncertainty, she finally got the call she was waiting for. Thanks to a liver transplant she will celebrate her 30th birthday this year.
“I was 18," she said. "They said the word transplant and I went into shock. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know how to feel.”
Warner lived with liver failure for almost a decade.
“I was 18," she said. "I was supposed to go to college. I was supposed to have a future. Now I didn't know if any of that was worth it. Try telling a guy on your third date that I'm probably not gonna live, so why plan a future?”
In November 2014, she received a liver.
“I was knocking on death's door and it came just in time," she said.
More than three years later she is thriving.
“It hasn't been an easy road, but I'm alive and I'm no longer just surviving day to day,” Warner said.
She’s using this second chance to encourage others to sign up to be organ donors.
She teamed up with the Life to Life campaign on the UVU campus. Students dropped by booths to get more information and pinwheels.
“We're having volunteers hand out two pinwheels to each student,” said Felicia Coltrin, Life to Life Campaign Coordinator. “Pinwheels inspired us because they are symbolic of turning obstacles into opportunities.”
She knows firsthand the difference an organ donor can make in a person’s life.
“I married one of my best friends a year and a half ago," she said. "To Susan, who was my donor, you saved my life. You saved two other lives. A simple thank you seems so inadequate.”
To register to be a donor, click here.
