MEDIA RELEASES
Sacramento Firefighters and Transplant Community Welcome A “Ride Across America” All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) Tour
Riders to Drive Home the Importance of Organ and Tissue Donation
During April’s Donate Life Month
Sacramento, CA - Led by firefighter Brian Hinsley, who received a life-saving liver transplant in 2000 - a dozen transplant recipients, donor family members and organ donors will set off from California on their ATVs for a cross country tour to drive home this life-saving message to America: Donate Life!
The group will be welcomed to Sacramento on Sunday, April 9 at 1:00 p.m. by Sacramento firefighters, along with dozens of local transplant recipients, donor families and donors. Among those welcoming the group – Assistant Fire Chief for Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, Dan Haverty, of El Dorado Hills, who made national news when he donated a portion of his liver to the Bishop of Sacramento’s Catholic Diocese one year ago.
The ATV crew will be treated to a special Sacramento welcome on Sunday, April 9, at 1:00 p.m.at the State Capitol’s Firefighter’s Memorial (on the East side of the State Capitol Building near the access road). Immediately following the event, the ATV group will head for Reno (about 1:30 p.m.). At that time, Sacramento firefighters and their fire trucks (decorated with Donate Life banners) will converge on the San Juan Road overpass – the stretch of freeway that goes underneath it is right after the transition from NB I-5 to EB I-80 – to salute the “Ride Across America” ATV riders and wish them well on their cross-country tour.
As a special tribute the Sacramento firefighters will honor all of their local firefighter colleagues who have been touched by donation/transplantation, as well as 46-year-old Brian Hinsley, a firefighter with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, who was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis 16 years ago. The veteran firefighter was home sick for two years – while he waited for a life-saving transplant. Locally, in addition to above-mentioned Assistant Fire Chief Dan Haverty, Captain Gay Jones of the Sacramento Fire Department Sacramento is also a living donor. She gave a kidney to her sister in November of last year.
“My 3-year-old daughter, Megan, didn’t understand why Dad laid on the couch all the time,” says Hinsley. “But, following my liver transplant on March 21, 2000 I am back
100% and she’s getting to see what her real dad is like – a man who will hit the pavement to help others in crisis.”
In fact, 91,000 people in the United States now wait for a life-saving transplant. One in five of those people (nearly 20,000) reside here in California. The tragic fact is, one-third of those people will die waiting.
“A Ride Across America” was conceived in 2002 by living organ donor Kevin Monroe, of Lakewood, and his brother Greg Monroe of Chino Hills as homage to their brother Elliott, a fan of off-road adventures who succumbed to kidney disease.
“We look forward to inspiring people across the country do donate life,” Kevin explained. “Each donor can be a hero – giving life to eight people as an organ donor and improving another 50 lives as a tissue donor.”
The ATVs have been outfitted and permitted for riding on traditional passenger highways. The team leaves from Seal Beach in Southern California at on Saturday, April 8 th. From there they head to Sacramento and then the East Coast. They are expected to arrive in New York City on Friday, April 21. Local events will be held across the country at designated stops until the riders reach their destination.
April has been designated National Donate Life Month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help raise public awareness of the critical need for organ, tissue, marrow and blood donation.
Here in California, April will also commemorate the one-year-anniversary for the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry. Launched on April 4, 2005 the statewide online registry (www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org) has already signed up 250,000 registrants. The registry is an Advanced Directive for organ and tissue donation, ensuring that the wish of individuals to give life is honored at the time of death.
All Californians will have even easier access to the Donate Life California Registry in July of this year, when the California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin recording the donation wishes of those applying for or renewing their driver license and adding those names to the registry. A permanent pink dot will be printed on licenses of those who sign up to give life.
*Note: Footage of Brian Hinsley and his long wait for his liver transplant, can be found on the video “No Greater Love” – at: www.fiftyyears.healthcare.ucla.edu/stories/stories.html
###
*GSDS is a private, nonprofit agency facilitating organ donation and transplantation in Sacramento and 10 surrounding counties, as well as Santa Rosa.
Print
this page