Donate Life - Taylor Breuer's Story

In my opinion, being an organ or tissue donor is a selfless act that can impact someone's life after I’m no longer on this earth.

I decided to become an organ and tissue donor at the age of 16; I told my mom that if anything ever happened to me that's what I wanted. Then when I was 18, I had it added to my driver's license that I am a donor. I made this decision because when I was 15, I had to have heart surgery and I was introduced to a wonderful family by accident at the hotel the day before my surgery. Their 18 month old grandson was in St. Louis Children's Hospital having his second open heart surgery.

The grandmother came to visit me after my surgery and I asked questions about her grandson. She explained to me that by the five years old, her grandson would have to have a heart transplant. I have followed his story for years now, he got the heart transplant, and on March 25th he turned 12 years old!

Meeting him and having surgery myself are the reasons that I wanted to work in the medical field, so I could help people. In my opinion being an organ or tissue donor is a selfless act that can impact someone's life after I'm no longer on this earth. It's crazy to think that one organ donor can save eight lives, to me that is amazing!

Learn More

To learn more about organ and tissue donation, visit our Donate Life page. To register to become a donor in Illinois, visit https://www.lifegoeson.com/.