Former Hills resident Al Berdahl is a three-time tissue recipient, so his job with the South Dakota Lions Eye and Tissue Bank comes easily.
“I’m a walking poster board,” he admitted Wednesday after speaking to a driver’s education class in Luverne High School.
“I talk about it to anyone who will listen.”
Minnesota now requires a portion of classroom driver’s education to focus on education about organ and tissue donation.
And for many local students, that means hearing from Berdahl, who is passionate about his message.
“It’s a miraculous thing to do,” he told the class gathered in Loel Olson’s classroom Wednesday.
“You have the ability to save and enhance lives far beyond your ability to imagine … and it’s all because we check the box and have the conversation with our loved ones.”
Soon-to-be drivers will need to decide “yes” or “no” to the organ and tissue donor question on their driver’s license.
For teenagers the concept of morbidity is hard to grasp, but Berdahl delivers the message in a format they can understand.
“We want you to live a long, healthy and prosperous life,” he told them. “We don’t want you to be donors. We want you to be designated donors. If tragedy strikes, we hope you’re a donor.”
And he reminds them to talk to their parents about their decision, because drivers younger than 18 need to have their parents’ signatures in order to check the donor box.
Berdahl points out all designated donors need to communicate their wishes with loved ones to assure that the family is aware and can help facilitate their loved one’s wishes.
‘Otherwise I’d be in a wheelchair’
Berdahl was born without his left forearm, but he talks at great length about his physical impairments that were corrected by organ and tissue donation.
He tells students he wouldn’t be able to walk or see if it hadn’t been for the individuals who decided to be donors.
“The only reason I’m standing in front of you right now is because there was a donor who donated bone tissue,” he told them. “Otherwise I’d be in a wheel chair.”
A 1992 crash in Sioux Falls sent his vehicle into oncoming traffic at more than 60 mph.
“The top of my tibia, where the knee rests, was shattered,” he said. “I asked the doctor if I’d ever walk again.”
His doctor explained that donated bone would be used to rebuild the shattered limb and he’d be fine.
“These things allow people to walk again, live pain free and become productive in society again,” Berdahl said.
He also talks about his cornea transplant surgeries, which were performed by his son, Dr. John Berdahl, an ophthalmologist with Vance Thompson Vision, Sioux Falls.
‘A miracle by any definition’
Alan’s eyes began failing around 2010 due to Fuch’s dystrophy, a degenerative condition that often causes blindness, usually in both eyes.
At the time, Alan’s job at the eye and tissue bank was to evaluate donated corneas for potential transplant quality, and it was becoming difficult to see to perform his work.
He switched his duties to outreach coordinator, but his son meanwhile suggested he go through with the cornea transplant surgery, the only viable treatment for the disorder.
“I could see immediately, and there was no discomfort,” Alan raved about the procedures last summer.
“I’m now 20-20 uncorrected. I’m no longer going blind. It’s a miracle to me by any definition.”
Berdahl is clearly proud of his son, whom he calls a gifted surgeon, but he tells students, “It’s not about me; it’s not about my son; it’s about organ and tissue donation.
“It’s only possible because two people donated corneas; and I’m seeing now because of it.”
Saying ‘thank you’
He said organ and tissue recipients are given the chance to write thank-you letters to families of donors.
“Oh, you should read some of those letters …” Berdahl said.
He said recipients and donors aren’t allowed to know each other, because the system strictly protects privacy, but he said there is therapeutic value in the correspondence.
As a recipient himself, Berdahl also wrote a letter.
“There are not words in the English language to adequately say thank you for something like this,” he said.
“Yet we try.”
And he said it helps grieving families to know the death of the their loved one resulted in a new lease on life for someone else.
He tells the story about one family who asked, “What happened to the tissue that was donated?”
Berdahl said this family’s loved one had helped 407 people with tissue grafts. “Just think … 407 people were helped by one person deciding to be a donor.”
He calls it “the power of one,” and said 723 grafts is the most his organization has ever seen from one person, but more commonly, one person can contribute up to eight organs and often over 100 eye and tissue grafts.
“It’s an amazing thing we can do,” Berdahl said.
“What a legacy! How many lives can one person touch?” he said. “To be able to see again, to be pain free, to be walking again, to solve abnormalities …”
In his closing remarks to students, Berdahl used another personal experience to drive home the importance of driving without distractions.
In 1951 his parents died in a crash caused by a drunk driver. “The guy ran a stop sign and plowed into our family’s car,” Berdahl said.
He was 2 years old, and he and his brother were thrown from the vehicle and survived, but his parents did not.
“He did one year in prison, and I got a lifetime without my parents,” he said.
“Why do I tell this story? Because things can happen in an instant. This guy didn’t decide he was going to kill someone that day.”
He urged the young drivers to avoid all distractions behind the wheel, including cell phones.
“Leave the cell phone out of reach in the car,” he said.
More information about organ donation is available on the Minnesota Department of Motor Vehicles website, dmv.org, and the South Dakota Lions Eye and Tissue Bank website, sdletb.org.
About Alan Berdahl:
Berdahl and his wife, Joan, lived in Hills for 25 years, moving to Sioux Falls in December 2012.
They have two children, John, an ophthalmologist with Vance Thompson, Sioux Falls, and Jim, a critical care nurse with Sanford Sioux Falls.
He taught high school band in the Hills-Beaver Creek School District from 1989 through 1991, and he is a tuba player and chairman of Tuba Christmas in Sioux Falls.