Courtesy of OCNJ Daily.
Every year, on Sept. 15, Joe Pratt sends a “thank you” card to a family he has never met.
That date is the anniversary of Pratt’s life-saving surgery in 2013. He received two transplanted lungs from an organ donor who was killed in a car crash and was just 23 years old.
“This is all the information we have on my donor,” Pratt said of the man’s age and how he died. “I wish I knew more.”
Pratt, 74, of Upper Township, sends the cards to his donor’s family members to thank them and let them know he is in good health now. The cards are forwarded to the family by the Gift of Life Donor Program, but Pratt has not yet received a reply.
“Hopefully, one day I’ll have an opportunity to meet my donor family,” he said.
Pratt shared his story Saturday with 15 people who came to the Macedonia United Methodist Church in Ocean City to hear about the national organ donation program and how it is literally “the gift of life.”
“If it was not for my donor family, I would not be standing here today,” Pratt said.