‘Death can still bring life’: Alabamians encourage eye transplant donation in national campaign

By Magdala Louissaint

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    BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (WVTM) — Two Alabamians are featured in a this year’s national campaign by Advancing Sight Network to celebrate recipient’s and donors’ families.

November will soon serve two purposes for U.S. Army Veteran Josie Evans, Veterans Day and National Eye Donation Month.

“It makes me really proud that someone else is having the ability to live a better life because of the sacrifice,” Josie Evans says in the campaign video.

Tearful reunion between donor and recipientTearful reunion: 8-year-old girl meets her bone marrow donor at Children’s of Alabama Hospital Evans’ husband, Julian, made the sacrifice last summer as an organ donor.

Josie said, “I was in Huntsville, so I had driven for five hours trying to get to him, you know, just praying and asking God to save my husband. But when I got there, he was gone.”

His widow Josie tells WVTM 13 he died from a blood clot in his lungs a few weeks after surgery.

“If I can only meet the person who has my husband’s eyes and heart,” Evans said.

In November, the nation will get to hear her story on the importance of being a donor before you pass away in the campaign, called “I can see clearly now.”

Teresa Ham, with Advancing Sight Network, says Miss Evans’ letter to her husband’s recipients made them reach out to her.

“We also celebrate with our corneal transplant recipients the vision that they have restored,” Ham said.

People will hear Danny Rivers’ story too. Rivers received two cornea donations from two different donors.

Rivers said, “It was a young lady that passed away in her early twenties, and I’ve communicated with her mom and her family and certainly expressed how grateful I am. And the gratitude and their sacrifice.”

Evans, who had to make the decision to donate her husband’s organs, says she’d do it again after she’s seen the silver lining in tragedy.

“There’s a person out there that you can save. I can see clearly now the massive impact a donor has. I can see clearly how the impact of death can still bring life,” Evans said.

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