Taylor's Gift

Taylor Storch and her family were on their last day of a skiing vacation in Colorado when 13-year-old Taylor fell backward, striking her head on a tree. She was transported to the hospital and, the following day, the Storch family was informed that Taylor was brain dead. Her parents, Todd and Taylor, were asked if they would donate Taylor’s organs, and the grieving family agreed. As Taylor’s dad, Todd, said “Taylor was a giving, wonderful person, and I looked at Tara, and we knew exactly that’s what Taylor would do. She was so giving, and that choice was very, very easy.”

Taylor lost her life, but through organ donation, her heart saved the life of Patricia Winters, an Arizona mother of two suffering from cardiomyopathy. Patricia’s heart was giving out, sapping her strength, and making it all but impossible for her to be the mom she wanted to be.

Through a combination of coincidence and persistence, Taylor’s parents and the recipient of her heart found each other and agreed to meet. When they did – 6 months after the accident – Tara Storch listened and heard her daughter’s heart beating once again.

The Storches didn’t stop giving after agreeing to donate Taylor’s organs. They learned that 90% of Americans say they’d like to donate their organs after they die, but only 30% know how to go about it. So they established a website - Taylor’s Gift - to provide resources for people to learn what to do. To quote Taylor’s dad, Todd, “Most people want to become donors and they’re not sure how to, and we’re trying to make that very, very easy for them, with one place to do that. All the states are listed. We want to have one simple place to make it easy for everyone to become an organ donor.”

Thank you, Taylor Storch, for the gift of life.

As a nurse, I’ve seen the difference organ donation can make for the patients I’ve cared for. But on a more personal level, I saw the difference it made for my father’s wife, who lived for 13 years after being the recipient of lungs from an 18-year-old man whose family agreed to allow his organs to be donated. We never learned the identity of this young man or of his family, but we remain grateful for those precious years.

If you’ve decided to be an organ donor, thank you.

If you’d like to but aren’t sure to go about it, please visit Taylor’s Gift to learn more about it.

And if you’re still undecided, contemplate for a moment the difference that was made in the lives of those who received her eyes, kidneys, liver, heart, pancreas, and lungs.