By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

When she answered the planning office telephone in Cape Elizabeth Town
Hall, Hiromi Dolliver said she had no idea why any one would want to
interview her.

As the planning board secretary, she was accustomed to fielding
questions about meeting minutes, but she was caught off guard by the
news Gov. John Baldacci had honored her and four other Maine residents
by issuing a proclamation naming Dec. 3, 2007 Organ Donor Awareness Day.

As December came to a close, however, Dolliver had the governor’s
proclamation within her South Portland home. A volunteer with the New
England Organ Bank for nearly six years, Dolliver is an advocate for
organ and tissue donation because she knows first hand what it means to
give the gift of life.

On Aug. 30, 2002, Dolliver was home with a bad back when she received a
call from a doctor at a Boston area psychiatric hospital where her
35-year-old daughter, Nancy Webster, was a patient.   

“He told me she had made a suicide attempt, a very serious suicide
attempt, and they were headed for [Massachusetts General Hospital] and
they were trying to revive her and it didn’t look very good,” Dolliver
says.

Because of her back pain, Dolliver was unable to make it to the
hospital. A nurse in the cardiac intensive care unit kept her updated,
but didn’t give her much hope that her daughter would survive. The
doctors were able to get Webster’s heart pumping again, but she was on
a respirator and was unconscious and did not respond to any outside
stimuli, Dolliver says.

When she received a call from a nurse at the New England Organ Bank,
who wanted to know if she would consider organ donation, Dolliver
answered in the affirmative. Although she and her daughter had never
discussed the issue because she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals
for the last 16 years of her life, Dolliver says she didn’t hesitate to
say yes to donation.

“She made numerous suicide attempts,” Dolliver says. “She didn’t want to live. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

Several days after entering the hospital, Dolliver says her daughter
was declared brain dead. The New England Organ Bank was able to use her
heart, liver and both of her kidneys.  

Webster’s liver and a kidney were donated to a young widow with two
teenage children and her other kidney was donated to a young man who
also had children, Dolliver says.

“I had the sense we had affected an enormous number of lives besides the recipients themselves,” she says.

And the recipient of her daughter’s heart?

“I know her heart’s still working fine because we know the young man,” she says with a smile.

Initially, Dolliver only knew a few basic details about Tu Nguyen, the
now 35-year-old man who received her daughter’s heart. Dolliver says
Nguyen had an enlarged heart and on two occasions had almost died while
in the hospital that summer.

About a month after the transplant, his family wrote to Dolliver and
her husband, Daniel Dolliver, and they started corresponding back and
forth through the organ bank. After about six or seven months, both
sides expressed the desire to meet.

They met at the New England Organ Bank headquarters in Newton, Massachusetts the day before Mother’s Day.

“I don’t know that there’s any preparation,” Dolliver says with a big
laugh, of the days that preceded the event. “Life and death comes at
you when you’re not planning for it to happen.”

Dolliver says it was a very emotional experience with her and her
husband meeting Nguyen and members of his family including his parents,
sister and brother-in-law.

Nguyen, who lives in the Boston area, is a part-time student studying
computer technology and plans to graduate in May, Dolliver says.

She points out a photo in her living room, taken last year, of her and
her husband with Nguyen. For the past several years, on Memorial Day
weekend, Nguyen and members of his family have come to Maine to visit
with the Dollivers and place flowers on Webster’s grave.

“I always think it’s easy to see how the recipient gains from an organ
donation – but I don’t think it’s widely understood how the donor
family is blessed,” Dolliver says.  “If we hadn’t done the
donation, [Webster’s] story would have ended on Aug. 30, 2002 and
instead it’s still being lived. Her heart is still beating and as far
as I know her liver and kidneys are still working.”

Dolliver, who volunteers to speak to the public about organ donation at
health fairs, says she understands it is a very touchy subject and
people don’t want to think about death. She adds, however, “way too
many people die waiting for an organ.”

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN)
Web site, there are currently more than 98,000 people on the national
waiting list for organ transplants.

Those  interested in becoming an organ and tissue donor can choose
that option when they apply for or renew their driver’s license at the
motor vehicle department. The New England Organ Bank will also mail
donor cards to people interested in donation.

Dolliver says she was moved to volunteer with the organ bank because
her experience with the process had such a profound effect on her life.


She is comforted by the notion her daughter has also impacted a “huge number of lives as she died.”

“Nancy didn’t have a lot of friends because of where she was and the
kind of life she led,” she says. “Outside of her family, there aren’t
many people who remember her, but I know all the recipients remember
her – they can’t help it.”

For more information about the New England Organ Bank, visit www.neob.org.