Organs that can be donated at the time of your death include
your heart, two lungs, two kidneys, liver, pancreas and the
small intestine. Organs can be used for life-saving transplants,
research into cures for life-threatening diseases and therapies
for current disease treatments. A typical organ donor is someone
who has died after suffering from a traumatic injury to the
brain--for example, a stroke, an aneurysm, or a car accident.
For death to be declared, a strict set of medical criteria must
be met. Among the criteria is the complete absence of activity
in either the brain or the brain stem (responsible for reflexes
such as cough, gag, blinking, etc.). By law, only a doctor not
connected to the transplantation process may declare brain
death. Some patients who suffer unrecoverable neurological
injuries but are not brain dead may be able to donate after
cardiac death. After death by neurological criteria is declared,
the heart, as a muscle, can still circulate blood for a limited
amount of time and keep th