Evan Burke loved to be in the wilderness and actively protected it. He enjoyed mountain biking and climbing and meditating at the base of a waterfall.

Evan was an art major at Southern Oregon University and just two months past his 21st birthday when he was struck by a car while skateboarding in his hometown of Ashland, Oregon. Although hospital staff thought his body might be too damaged for his organs to be viable for transplant, his mother brought up the subject of donation.

The donation coordinators from Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank kept Evan on mechanical support for another day, allowing Evan’s vital organs to stabilize. The team’s care ultimately allowed three organs – his heart, liver, and one kidney – to be transplanted. Evan’s family has since had the honor of meeting the heart and liver recipients and hopes to meet the kidney recipient. Evan also gave sight to two blind people, and his donation of bone and tissue helped many others.

Evan’s family came to realize that the donation of a single organ not only saves one life, but also profoundly influences the lives of a huge circle of humanity – including spouses, partners, parents, children and siblings and their families, close friends, co-workers, schoolmates, neighbors.