Organ Donation Registrations Surge After Officer’s Death

There was a sudden increase in the number of people registering to become organ, eye and tissue donors in Mississippi after the news last week that a slain police officer in Meridian had become a tissue donor.   The Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency says more than 50 people registered on its website following Kennis Croom’s death.  MORA says most people sign up to become donors through the Department of Public Safety when they get their driver’s license and it says that many on-line registrations in a few days is significant.  Because he died at the scene of the shooting and not in a hospital, Croom’s organs couldn’t be donated.  But tissue, which includes skin, heart valves, bone, ligaments, veins, corneas and other body parts, can be recovered from a donor up to 24 hours after cardiac death.