An alarm sounded in the intensive care unit at St. Alexius Medical Center.

A patient in Raumi Kudrna's unit was in cardiac arrest. The ICU clinical coordinator hurried from the room to help save the person's life.

When a life does end in the ICU, it could give life back to someone on the national organ transplant list. It takes healthy organs and an organized transplant team. Most importantly, it takes family consent.

People can express their wishes to be an organ donor with a card or by signing the back of their driver's license in some states. In North Dakota, people can check a box on the driver's license application form. About 58 percent of North Dakota drivers are registered to be organ and tissue donors, which is about 44 percent of the population, said Rebecca Ousley, LifeSource public relations coordinator.

In August, a new state law made it possible for North Dakota teens to make the decision to be an organ donor on their driver's license application, although it is subject to parent permission. More than 1,000 North Dakota minors registered this way in two months, Ousley said.

"It's very important," ICU director Carol Preskey said. "We don't discuss this with our children. It's important, because teens are more likely to be victims of car accidents, and there are children who need organ donations but cannot take an adult-size organ," she said.

Ultimately, though, a family member will make a decision no matter the age of the person who died. In addition to the decision whether to donate, they also will decide what organs and tissue to donate.

Hospital employees and a representative from an organ transplant service will talk with the family about a decision if a deceased person is deemed a medically viable organ donor. Each death at St. Alexius is reported to the organ transplant service, LifeSource in Minnesota. They serve North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and part of Wisconsin. When a person meets certain criteria for donating, LifeSource has someone talk to the family about making the donation.

The family can decide to donate major organs, like the heart and liver, and tissue, like the eyes and skin. Any number of organs can be donated, but generally a person donates three to four organs. If the organs are donated, then the organs are kept working with medications until the recipients are lined up. Up to 16 people could receive the organs and tissue of one person.

"Families are allowed to visit while the patient is here … it does prolong the grieving process," Kudrna said. The person can be kept in the hospital up to three or four days after they die while waiting for LifeSource to find transplant recipients.

There's hardly a shortage of transplant recipients. The waiting list for organ donors within the region served by LifeSource is 2,628 as of October. Nationally, there are 97,459 people on the organ transplant waiting list. LifeSource looks for a match with regional recipients first, because of proximity, then it checks the national registry, nursing director Donna Gage said.

Once recipients are ready, the organs are removed and flown to Minnesota. The organs have to match a person based on blood type, and in some cases size, among other criteria. The transplant team has a small window of time to get organs into another person. A heart can last four to six hours, while a kidney can last 12 to 24 hours. Tissue can last longer, Gage said.

St. Alexius has two to three people a year who meet the organ donation criteria, and averages two to six major organ donations, Gage said.

In 2006, Medcenter One and St. Alexius had a combined five solid organ donors, resulting in 25 organs transplanted and three organs donated for research. As of September, Medcenter One and St. Alexius have had a combined five solid organ donors, resulting in 13 organs transplanted and three organs donated, Ousley said.

For more information about organ donation, visit http://www.DonateLifeND.org, and for information about LifeSource, visit http://www.life-source.org.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)