Thirty-five years ago, an unknown grieving family became heroes to Dennis Segatto.
He got a life-saving kidney, and because of that, got the chance to meet his wife Niva two years later and together have a child, Bianca, who is now 29.
“To me, if it wasn’t for somebody donating their loved one’s organs, a kidney in my case, I don’t know if I would have been alive still or if I would have got married and had a family,” Segatto said Tuesday.
You can be a hero too, the 58-year-old Windsor man tells people, especially at this time of year.
April is Be a Donor month in Ontario and next week is National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week. Segatto is trying to encourage more people to take a few minutes to register as organ donors online, tell their family members about the decision and then get someone else to sign up, too.
There are about 1,500 people in Ontario waiting for a life-saving transplant. One deceased organ donor can save up to eight lives and, with tissue donation, enhance the lives of 75 others, he said.
“When I inspire somebody or show what I’ve gotten from a transplant, that’s how important this gift of life really is,” he said, noting the importance is even clearer when you see children who have had transplants grow to become active adults.
Segatto was 23 and not aware of how sick he was when he learned his kidneys weren’t even functioning at four per cent. Doctors said his kidney failure could have been related to a nasty bout of bronchitis a decade earlier.
He went on kidney dialysis. Thanks to a donor family, he received a kidney transplant July 29, 1979, when he was 24.
He wrote the donor family a thank you letter but never learned their identity.
That kidney lasted about 10 years. Then he had a second kidney transplant but that kidney was damaged. Segatto returned Tuesday from a checkup in London and is going strong on a kidney from another unknown family donor from 1994.
It’s easier to ask for money than it is to get people to register as an organ donor, he said. People tend not to want to go online and register even though it takes only a few minutes.
On April 25, 26 and 27, the Segattos and the Windsor-Essex Gift of Life Association will be at the Devonshire Mall to help people register online or ask questions. You can register or check to see if you are already registered through beadonor.ca.
You need to be at least 16 and have a health card. People think you have to be super healthy but Segatto said to register and let doctors decide if your organs or tissue can be used when you die. The oldest organ donor in Ontario was 90 years old and someone over 100 was a tissue donor, he said.
Signing a donor card doesn’t mean you are registered. Segatto encourages people to register online and then tell family members about it since they would be asked for their consent.
In Windsor, 20 per cent of the population is registered which is a low rate in Ontario — 162nd of 179 communities. The Essex County rate is a bit higher at 26 per cent. The Ontario average is 24 per cent. He’d love to see those numbers at 50 or 60 per cent of residents.
Last year, Segatto and his daughter co-founded the Windsor-Essex Gift of Life Association. At beadonor.ca/wegiftoflife the association is more than halfway to its goal of getting 500 people registered to be organ donors.
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