Tax Collectors’ Office lending a hand in honoring organ donors

TAMPA, Fla. —  More than 90% of people that become organ donors do so at their local tax collector’s office.

On Wednesday, the Hillsborough County Tax Collector’s Office is honoring those that save lives everyday through organ donations.

The tax collector’s office raised the Donate Life flag this morning. It will fly in honor of organ donors and to remember National Donate Life Month through April.

One of those lives saved was Lynda Neuhausen.

It started as shortness of breath and chest pain during a climb to her seat at Tropicana Field for a Tampa Bay Rays game back in 2003.

“My symptoms got worse and worse,” Neuhausen said. “I had severe chest pain after exercise or eating. I had severe fatigue. I would go through days where you know I couldn’t even get out of bed. I was so sick.”

Neuhausen is a Life Link organ donation volunteer, but she is also a heart transplant recipient.

For six years, doctors tried and failed to diagnose what was eventually discovered to be a genetic heart defect.

Two open heart surgeries were not effective and then doctors broke the news that she needed to be placed on the organ donation list.

“They said it may take years to find a match, and I maybe didn’t have years,” she said.

It was a grueling wait. and during it, her brother with the same genetic heart disease, didn’t make it.

“He passed away at St. Joseph’s in Tampa,” Neuhausen said. “And so, Life Link was the procurement organization that contacted me because I was next of kin, and so I went through the process of being a donor family member and making the decision to have my brother’s tissues and cornea donated.”

Lynda Neuhausen had a heart transplant and said she is still recovering but that she is getting stronger every day. 

Neuhausen said the experience made her familiar with the organ donation process.

It was a process that 10 months later put her on the receiving end of after getting a call — they had a heart that was a perfect match.

“It happened so fast that my family couldn’t even get there in time,” she said. “My transplant was in Orlando and I live in Hernando County, so it was a couple hours for any of my family members to get here, so I was on the phone with them as they wheeled me in to the operating room.”

Neuhausen said she is still recovering from the transplant and that she is getting stronger every day.

“You truly can have an impact not only on someone surviving whatever they are dealing with, but also increasing their and enhancing their quality of life,” Neuhausen said. “So not only are they living, they are living a life that they couldn’t otherwise have lived.”

See story from Spectrum Bay News 9 here.