Family donates Garner boy's organs

Jennifer Fernandez

Eight-year-old Miles Campbell loved to help those in need, a lesson he learned from his parents.

His latest project, spearheaded by his mother, Suzie Campbell, is collecting items to distribute to homeless people around town — “gift bags,” as Miles calls them — on the lookout for anyone in need.

Miles' parents, Susie and Tyler Campbell, died last week in a Memorial Day car accident, shortly after Miles sustained fatal injuries in the crash. Because Miles was a very generous person in life and both his parents were registered organ donors, his relatives agreed to donate his organs.

His last donation saved four lives, according to Dena Do of HonorBridge, North Carolina's largest federally designated organ donation organization.

It's what Miles and his parents would have wanted, said Tyler's mother, Cathy Campbell.

“He'll want to know that he was able to save another person's life,” she said of her grandson.

Fewer donors

While the majority of organ transplant recipients each year are adults, children also need new organs, and some are born with conditions that put them quickly on transplant lists, Do said.

“They essentially need life from the moment they're born,” she said.

As of June 2, 3,790 people in North Carolina were waiting for organ transplants, according to the National Network for Organ Sharing, a private, nonprofit organization contracted by the federal government to manage the nation's organ transplant system.

Of those, only 82 are under the age of 17.

Still, some people die while waiting.

Fitting organs for children is difficult because the size of the organ must also be taken into account: an adult-sized heart would not fit into a child's chest. While some adult organs can be used for children, other child's organs often fit better.

That is why there is such a high demand for children's organs.

“Kids need other kids,” Do said. “It's sad, but it's true.”

Twenty children have undergone transplants in North Carolina so far this year, according to federal data. As of June 2, four children in the state had donated their organs.

It's unclear whether the data includes organs donated by Miles, although Doe said Miles' lungs went to one recipient, his left kidney and pancreas to another, his right kidney to a third and his liver to a fourth.

“With any organ donation, there's a lot that has to go right,” said Joel Baucom, director of partner engagement at HonorBridge. Getting organs to where they're needed to save lives poses a multitude of logistical challenges.

“Every time it happens, it feels like a miracle.”

Long wait times

Two years ago, the United States reached a major milestone in organ transplantation: That year, the United States celebrated its 1 millionth transplant, more than any other country in the world.

A record 23,288 people donated organs last year, according to Donate Life America.

But it's still not enough: Every eight minutes, someone new is added to the transplant list in the United States.

And 5,600 people die each year in this country while waiting for an organ transplant.

It is not clear how many children die each year while waiting for a transplant. A study of pediatric heart transplants between 2016 and 2019 found that 250 American children died while waiting for a heart transplant. A more recent report found that 24 American children died while waiting for a kidney transplant in 2022.

The wait for an organ can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few years, and in some cases can last more than five years.

“The number of children and teens on the waiting list always exceeds the number of organs available, with approximately 50 percent of children remaining on the list for more than a full year,” pediatric intensivist Benson Su wrote in an article last year for HealthyChildren.org, a publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics, explaining the organization's policy on child organ donation.

“Unfortunately, some people die while waiting for a life-saving organ transplant,” Xu wrote. “Children under the age of one have the highest rate of deaths while waiting for an organ transplant.”

As of June 2, there were three infants (children not yet one year old) on the transplant waiting list in North Carolina.

The biggest need

According to Donate Life America, most children between the ages of 1 and 17 are waiting for a kidney transplant. Most children under the age of 1 are waiting for a liver or heart transplant.

Other children are waiting for lung, intestine and pancreas donations.

Small children can usually only receive organs from other children, but larger, older children can receive organs from adults.

For example, children over the age of two may be transplanted with an adult kidney, as long as it will fit in their body.

About 70 percent of organs come from deceased donors, according to federal transplant data, while the remaining 30 percent come from living donors.

Adults can become living donors by donating part of their kidney or liver to a patient. Although a patient can survive with only one kidney, both donor and recipient livers regenerate completely.

Nearly half of pediatric kidney transplants come from living donors, according to the American Kidney Foundation.

Difficult decisions

When a patient arrives at the hospital and has a low chance of survival, the process of possible organ donation begins.

Hospitals contact organ donation organizations such as HonorBridge, which then has a family support coordinator talk to the family. In some cases, patients are already registered as organ donors. But if there isn't such a designation, HonorBridge speaks with family members, who have the power to make organ donation decisions, Baucom said.

At HonorBridge, all of our family support coordinators have some sort of family-related background: some are pastors or church pastoral care providers, while others are social workers.

“Basically, these are people who have some experience working with people who have experienced trauma,” Baucom said.

Adults can choose to become organ donors before they die, and the designation will appear on their driver's license.

Teens can indicate their preference to donate when applying for a license, but until they turn 18, their parents have the final say.

For young children, families are faced with making decisions at the same time as saying goodbye to a loved one.

Cathy Campbell said she wasn't thinking about organ donation when Miles was rushed to hospital after the accident that killed his parents. She was just “praying that he would wake up.”

Someone brought up the topic of organ donation – she can't remember who said it – and the family then spoke to a nurse, who referred them to HonorBridge, she said.

She said both of her grandparents, as well as Tim and Kayla Sasser, who would have been Miles' guardians if he had lived, discussed organ donation before making the decision.

“This was one of the most encouraging and affirming decisions we have made,” Tim Sasser said during a memorial run/walk for Miles and his family on Saturday, June 1, at White Deer Park in Garner.

'To help people'

Dozens of people wore red shirts to the event, honoring the family's deep ties to NC State — Tyler and Susie graduated from the university but met the Sasser family during their freshman year.

Among those in attendance was Katherine Redmond, a fellow nurse from Graham who worked with Suzie Campbell at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill. Redmond said that knowing Miles was able to help others through organ donation is both a comfort to what happened and a reflection of how Miles' mother approached life.

“We became nurses to help people,” she said.

Miles' generosity doesn't end with the four lives he saved through organ donation – his heart was also donated for research.

For many organ donor families, the knowledge that their loved one continues to live on inside another person's body helps them cope with grief, Baucom said.

“Organ donation is a really unique opportunity to bring a little bit of light, or a little bit of hope, to a really dark place,” he said, “because there's a legacy and knowing that life and love didn't end there with death.”