Emergency vehicles show a lot of heart this Organ Donation Week
North east Emergency service vehicles are wrapping themselves pink for Organ Donation Week
North east police vans, bikes and ambulances are being wrapped in pink to raise awareness for Organ Donation Week.
Durham Constabulary, Cleveland Police and the northeast ambulance service are all taking part, in the hope that it will encourage people to consider signing up to the NHS Organ Donor Register. Four vehicles in total have had the pink make-over.
Terry Archbold is a Sergeant at Durham Constabulary taking part in the campaign. He knows too well the importance of organ donation, after his young daughter Beatrix received a heart transplant earlier this year:
"Beatrix’s life was saved by a donor. She spent 14 months in hospital, living life connected to an artificial heart, unable to come home and every day her life in the balance. And she would only come home with a successful heart transplant."
"So this campaign is massively important. To raise awareness that there are 250 children across the country waiting every day for life changing transplants in one form or another."
But Terry and his wife Cheryl, have also been at the other side of organ donation. The family previously donated the heart of their stillborn daughter Isabel, in 2018. Terry said it was only then, he realised the importance of raising awareness for organ donation.
"In 2018 we lost our daughter Isabel, and when we lost her, we were asked if we would donate her heart. And myself and Cheryl had very different responses."
"My response was initially, no. I was overcome with grief, I was overcome with emotion. And I couldn’t process the request that was being made of me. But Cheryl’s response was yes."
"And since then we’ve talked about why we had such different responses, and earlier in life Cheryl had read a magazine article about organ donation in children. It was about how several children have been saved by an organ donor. And that had stuck in the back of her head.”
“And so when we were asked that question, that prior awareness helped Cheryl process that moment far greater than I was able to process it."
Terry hopes that the awareness the campaign raises will help people to make these important decisions more easily, if it ever happens to them.
“At the moment there are over 250 children living in hospitals, waiting for life saving transplants. Yet there are only 50 child donors per year. So conversations matter. Discussions matter. If people can set their minds to what they would do, before finding themselves in those circumstances, the ability to process that question really could be life saving.”
Organ donation week is running from Monday 18th September to Sunday 24th September, and the pink emergency service vehicles will be noticeable across the whole of the north east.
Despite a slight increase in people receiving organs last year, there are currently over 7,000 people on the active transplant waiting list.