An organ recipient's story: New life, from a stranger

VIRGINIA BEACH

Army "Joe" Leake never thought much about organ donation. That changed last month.

A merchant mariner with the Military Sealift Command, Leake said he passed up an overseas deployment in March to stay home with his son. He had little option. The boy's mother - Leake's fiancee - was heading to Iraq as a Navy reservist.

Shortly after she left, Leake, 36, came down with what he thought was the flu. Two days later, barely able to move, he called 911. He passed out in the ambulance.

On March 11, Leake awoke in Richmond with a new liver.

Leake said toxicology tests haven't concluded what caused his acute liver failure, though it might have been chemicals or fuel on his ship.

He'll never know how a liver became available right when he needed one, or what would have happened if he had been at sea, instead of at home.

"It was a miracle, to be honest with you," Leake said Thursday while recovering at his parents' home in Virginia Beach. "I had been on the donor's list all of two days. The doctor gave me 12 hours to live.... By the grace of God, they found a liver."

Dena Reynolds, a spokeswoman for LifeNet in Richmond, said three Virginians die each week waiting for a liver. There are about 2,500 people in the state waiting for various transplants.

April is National Donate Life Month, and Reynolds urges people to consider donating. One person's organs can save seven lives, she said. Tissue donations can help heal another 50. Corneas can give sight to another two.

"It looks like I'm going to make a full recovery, to be here to raise my son," said Leake, whose fiancee was able to spend two weeks by his side before returning to Iraq. He's recovering at his parents' house; his son went to Pennsylvania to stay with an aunt and uncle.

"My way of repaying the younger man who saved my life is by becoming a donor and taking part in raising awareness for the importance of organ donation," Leake said. "You take a lot of things for granted. It's definitely changed my perspective. I'm part of the team now."

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com