By Joe Tone, Record Staff Writer
Stockton Record

On the lawn outside San Joaquin General Hospital on Sunday afternoon, there was an event that, from afar, might have looked much like a memorial service.

There were fresh flowers and framed family photos, and there was slow piano music. People in dresses, sport coats and stoic stares took their seats quietly and deliberately.

But the event was a celebration, not a memorial. It was life given, not lives lost. It was to honor the families of San Joaquin County organ, blood and tissue donors.

"Your gift to an unknown stranger is an act of ordinary people doing extraordinary things," Phyllis Weber, executive director of the Oakland-based California Transplant Donor Network, told the 20 or so families that gathered under a warm sun for the event.

The Transplant Network, the hospital, Delta Blood Bank, the Northern California Transplant Bank and the University of California, San Francisco Tissue Bank sponsored the emotional first-time event.

Speakers included donors, recipients and the families of both, all of whom shared tearful stories about how a donation changed their life. They urged others to donate blood regularly and to sign up to be a tissue and organ donor.

More than 8,000 patients in northern and central California are awaiting a vital organ transplant, according to the Transplant Network. More than 6,000 people nationwide died last year waiting for transplants.

The stories told Sunday made the statistics feel real. There was Ernest Sopp, the 75-year-old Stockton man who has donated 57 gallons of blood to the Delta Blood Bank since the 1940s. One of the 5 percent of Americans who donate blood, Sopp said donating helped put him through college. "Back then it paid," he said.

Kathy Forgnone spoke, too. Her 16-year-old daughter, Vanessa, donated her organs after being killed in a car accident in 2002. Tina Barnes spoke of her sister's death, about how those donated organs made her feel like her sister was still living alongside her.

Then came Valerie Mitchell. Mitchell's ordeal began in 1993, when, driving home from the snow on Highway 108 near Sonora, a car crossed the center line and slammed head on into her 1977 Ford Thunderbird. "My tank," she called the car back then.

The other's car driver died instantly. Mitchell's children survived, and so did she. But she lost a leg and needed reconstructive surgery on much of her body, including her face.

"I have a new nose," Mitchell, 47 and dressed in happy orange, told the crowd. "This one's better."

To return to her life, Mitchell needed blood and tissue transfusions. But the blood transfusion infected her with Hepatitis C, and she developed cirrhosis, the dangerous liver disease. A doctor gave her one year to live without a transplant.

At first, there was a five-year wait for a new liver. But a perfect match was found quickly, and on May 30, 1998, Mitchell, in her best Schwarzenegger, told her family, "I'll be back," and headed into surgery. She came out with a new liver, and now she makes a point to thank donors and to encourage others to fill out their donation cards.

"I'm here," she said outside the hospital on Sunday. "I survived."

* To reach reporter Joe Tone, phone (209) 546-8272 or e-mail jtone@recordnet.com

To become a donor
There is no state or national registry of potential organ donors. To become a donor, notify your next of kin that you want your organs and tissues to be donated. You can also fill out a donor card for your records. The card is available online at http://www.ctdn.org/, the Web site of the California Transplant Donor Network.