Changes in organ donor status can fall through cracks in the system

Raluca Maniță

When Raven Kinser walked into a Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office two summers ago, she checked a box on her driver's license application indicating she did not want to donate her organs in the event of her death, reversing her earlier donor registration. Six months later, after she was declared dead at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, her parents say, they found out that the checked box didn't matter. Raven's case reveals a little-known gap in the U.S.