Tuesday, November 10, 2009 9:38 PM CST
EIU senior dedicated to multiplying organ donor rolls
By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer
rstroud@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Eastern Illinois University senior Carissa Coon’s brother spent 58 days in a hospital waiting for a suitable heart and kidney for the transplants he needed.
“He was stuck in his room the whole time. It was hard for him to just sit there and wait,” said Coon, adding her brother, Bill, is a an active, 20-year-old college student.
Coon, a Barrington resident, dedicated herself to registering as many people as possible as organ donors and, even after her brother received his transplants this fall, she has continued this effort. Her goal is to help those, like her brother, who are sitting in hospital rooms waiting for life-saving organ transplants.
This fall, Coon has been leading Donate Life Illinois’ Campus Challenge donor registration drive at EIU. The drive also is occurring after the May 30 death of recent EIU graduate Cameron Chana. His death in a bus accident has heightened campus awareness of organ donations. Donate Life reported that Chana saved several lives through organ donation.
Coon, president of the EIU Panhellenic Council for fraternities and sororities, brought a guest speaker from the Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network to EIU and was filmed on campus for a Donate Life video that has been posted online at YouTube. She said being on camera was a little uncomfortable for her.
“I am really shy. I am a senior and I am just now taking the speech class I should have taken as a freshman,” Coon said, adding the video is worth it for her if even just one person registers as a donor. She has helped register more than 130 people on campus while working with Donate Life, a coalition of organ donations agencies.
In addition, Coon has organized donor registration booths. The final one is set for 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday in the University Union, near the First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust branch. Coon said donors also can register at www.donatelifeillinois.org with the Illinois Organ/Tissue Donor Registry, managed by the Illinois Secretary of State.
Coon said she started out staffing the booths by herself and was soon joined by other volunteers, including friends of Cameron Chana.
Chana, of Clarendon HIlls, and Justin Sleezer of Yorkville, both 22, died as the result of a double-decker bus accident on Illinois Route 16 in Mattoon. Chana’s family has been encouraging people to register as organ donors, like Chana did, and have set up a Web site, www.cameronchana.org, to promote this cause and to honor him.
Among those volunteering at the donor registration booths is EIU junior Jared Jones, one of Chana’s Sigma Pi fraternity brothers. Jones said Chana was a happy, care-free person whom everyone liked to be around.
“Every time you walked into a room with him, your spirits went up immediately,” Jones said.
Jones said Chana would be happy to see so many registering as donors. Jones said he was surprised to learn that organ/tissue donations have the potential to save or enhance multiple lives, up to 25 different people. He said it has been heartening to read letters on Chana’s Web site about the lives Chana saved by being a donor.
A letter from Donate Life on Chana’s Web site said that his heart, lungs, liver, and both of his kidneys went to save the lives of people needing transplants. Chana’s parents, Rob and Lori Chana, have posted an open letter to the organ recipients on his Web site.
“Donating his organs was in harmony with the way Cameron lived his life. Cameron had already made his decision — at his young age he took all appropriate steps to be an organ donor. He was a gift during life and continues to be so in his death,” his parents wrote.
Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 238-6861.
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