This summer I spent a week at my grandparents’ house in California.

Like clockwork, every evening at six we’d scoot the kitchen chairs around their 1970s television set and pay homage to Charlie Gibson and his World News.

Between my grandfather’s intermittent interjections and fist shakings, Charlie finished the riveting half hour with a human-interest story that succeeded in gaining our full attention.

This summer a 21-year-old army ranger, Benjamin Kopp, died in Afghanistan. As a result of Kopp’s bravery, six people from his platoon were spared. He won the Bronze Star with Valor, Meritorious Service Medal and the Purple Heart for his efforts.

But perhaps Benjamin Kopp’s greatest act wasn’t witnessed by his comrades on the battlefield, but by a Department of Motor Vehicles employee in his hometown when he made the decision to become an organ donor. Two days after Kopp’s death, 57-year-old Judy Meikle received his heart after three months of waiting on the transplant list.

The problem is, not nearly enough of us are registered organ donors and too many of us are misinformed about what being a donor entails.

According to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing, there are 103,013 candidates on the organ transplant waiting list in the U.S. as of Aug. 11, 2009. There have been only 6,005 donors between January and May of this year. Moreover, while 18 people die every day in the United States while waiting for a vital organ, only 38 percent of Americans are registered organ donors.

First and foremost, becoming an organ and tissue donor is incredibly easy.

The most common way to register as an organ donor is to sign up while renewing your driver’s license, although new online registries have made the process even more accessible.

It is also a good idea to talk to your close friends and family members about your decision to become an organ donor, as family members often have the capability to block donation.

So, if it isn’t inconvenience that is keeping people from the donor registry, it is misinformation. Perhaps the two most common myths are that doctors won’t work as hard to save the life of a registered donor, or that physicians may begin to harvest organs before the patient is really dead. For one, the physician in charge of your care has nothing to do with transplantation.

Additionally, organ donors are typically subjected to more tests than other patients to make sure they are actually dead before the organs are harvested.

Organ donation does not interfere with having an open-casket funeral or violate the tenets of most major religions. What’s more, old age and most medical conditions do not prevent one from becoming an organ donor.
The moral of the story?

You don’t have to be an army ranger to be a hero.

Just ask Judy Meikle or any one of the 103,013 people who are currently affected by the need for an organ in our country.

Kristen is busy persuading people to become registered donors. Reach her at kckelle2@asu.edu.