Tom Gano organized a local group of other donor families, living donors, and recipients, and with his wife, began visiting high schools in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. They shared their story and that ignited their passion to advocate for organ and tissue donation. They found solace and support from others who had experienced their sense of loss.Įventually, the couple made their way back to Cooper Hospital around 1989 for an organ donor program, where they were reunited with the trauma nurse, Bill, who treated their son. The family underwent counseling and joined a self-help group for bereaved parents and siblings, Compassionate Friends. “It helped to know that someone could be saved and Curtis didn’t die in vain.”
”I just didn’t want anyone to feel what I was feeling if something could be done to save their life,” said Vivian Gano, 75, a retired teaching assistant. Shortly before Curtis was pronounced dead, the Cherry Hill couple agreed to donate his organs, which saved four lives and helped others through tissue donation. Tom Gano knew after the first tests that the likely outcome was bleak. They prayed at his bedside, hoping for a miracle. Cohen, one of the world’s oldest liver transplant recipients, dies at 94 “I never thought I’d have to make that decision for my children,” said Tom Gano, 80, a retired IT specialist, choking back tears.
The South Jersey couple has crisscrossed the region, sharing their son’s story with about 290,000 students and talking about their decision to donate his organs when doctors at Cooper Hospital in Camden declared Curtis brain-dead two days after he was struck by a van on July 6, 1987.