MEDICINE&SCIENCE

More at drug user, or from a prostitute, prisoner or even promiscuous college student, also considered risks, said Dr. Jonathan S. Bromberg, a transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Donors or their family members must answer detailed questions about the donor’s history.

“I have the conversation a lot, every day,” said Bromberg, a professor of surgery and division head of transplant surgery at University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Some still say no. But somebody says yes somewhere. Those who are much sicker often can appreciate the organ.”

Nationally, 22 people a day die waiting for an organ. There are more than 120,000 people on the national waiting list.

In Maryland, there are more than 3,800 on waiting lists at transplant centers. Living Legacy estimates that 400 or more organs will be transplanted this year, from 150 to 160 donors.

While an increasing number of organs come from live donors, only about 2 to 3 percent of people who die qualify to give organs because the donors must be declared brain dead in the hospital where they can remain on life support.

Luis Burks was clinging to life in mid-July in a bathroom in his mother’s Rosedale house. His uncle, who grew suspicious because the door was closed for so long, found Burks and tried to revive him before calling 911.

It was two days before doctors at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center told Blankenship that her son would not recover and Living Legacy representatives informed her about his donor registration.

There’s a chance, she said, Burks decided to register because Blankenship told him that she had, or because the volunteer work they’d done together had made an impression on him. For a time before addiction wrecked his work ethic, Burks was employed with his mother in a warehouse for the retail giant Kohl’s, and the pair often participated in volunteer events sponsored by the company.

She said he’d be proud that he helped others with his organs. Even more may benefit from research on his lungs, including one of his sisters who has asthma.

“He was always the one telling people they would be fine,” even though he was struggling with depression, Blankenship said.

He may have been self-medicating when he began abusing prescription painkillers, she said.

He began sleeping a lot, and she began finding needle caps in the bathroom they shared. But she didn’t “connect the dots” that he’d moved on to injecting drugs.

Four days after Burk’s overdose, his organs were removed.

The time gave family and friends a chance to say their goodbyes. Blankenship found herself having to assure some family and friends that brain-dead really meant he was dead, despite the machines that kept oxygen and blood moving through his body.

Blankenship said she’s since made some of her own decisions: She’ll try to get help for those she suspects are abusing or addicted to drugs, and she will get training on how to use the overdose antidote naloxone.

She’ll be more sympathetic to those who may be suffering. She will speak out about addiction and organ donation, and their grim intersection.

She’ll make sure Burks’ 5-year-old daughter knows that his donations helped save lives.

“This is taking a bad thing and making it good,” she said.

Nationally, donations from those who overdosed from injected drugs are the fourthlargest organ donor group.