A new study says that one biker's loss could be someone else's gain.
The analysis done by Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital found that during these rallies, organ donations jumped 21 percent per day on average, and organ recipients went up 26 percent.
The researchers looked at records from more than 10,000 organ donors and over 35,000 transplant recipients and found that on average, rally days saw a marked increase in both donors and recipients. Before and after these rallies, the margin grew larger.
These findings reinforce the dangers of motorcycle riding in general and of rallies in particular, while also providing a sort of silver lining to those in need of organ transplants.
David Cron, a Harvard Medical School and Mass General clinical fellow, was the study's primary author. Organ donation is often called the gift of life, and we should make sure that we don't waste it, and that we use it to save other lives.
The increase in the number of organs available was not enough to relieve the critical shortage of donor organs that the nation faces.
The researchers weren't able to determine if the people whose deaths led to organ donation died in bike or car accidents.
It paints a pretty dire picture for the safety of those who attend events like Daytona, Florida's Bike Week, which lasts about ten days and attract half a million attendees each, as well as South Dakota's notorious Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which lasts about ten days and attract half
Cron said in the release that the spikes in organ donations and transplants signal a failure to avoid preventable deaths. Better safety protocols are needed around such events.
Doctors say they have figured out how to change an organ's blood type.
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