Traffic fatalities, as tragic as they are, keep thousands of people alive each year – people who need organ transplants. However, the number of potential donors has gone down in the last year.

Monica Norton’s sister-in-law, Angi Norton has had diabetes since she was 9 years old. Her pancreas began to fail seven years ago, and she has been on the donor list ever since. “I’d trade places with her in a heartbeat,” Monica says. “I’d give her anything I got.” Doctors predicted that Angi would die last year, but she’s fighting.

100,000 Americans are in need of organs just like Angi. “About 10,000 of these people will die without ever receiving a transplant,” says Dr. Rainer Greussner, one of ten transplant surgeons at University Medical Center. Over 1.2 million Arizonans are registered organ donors, but only 1% of those people actually qualify to donate.

According to the Organ Donor Network, one factor in the drop in the number of potential donors could be that there aren’t enough people dying, specifically from brain death injuries. That’s where most organs for transplants come from.

Traffic fatalities, as bad as they are, do help. “The best donors unfortunately are young donors, donors that drive wrecklessly, young donors that don’t wear helmets when they’re driving a motorbike,” says Greussner.

But here’s the problem – traffic fatalities are down nationwide. State law enforcement agencies recently reported a decrease in highway deaths, and high gas prices reportedly are causing that. Fewer people are on the road, leading to fewer people being killed in traffic accidents, which means there are fewer organ donors to save the life of transplant patients like Angi Norton.

The process of becoming an organ donor also added to the decrease in organ donations, but that has changed since February, and now it’s a lot easier. You can get more information about organ donations by clicking here.