BOYERS — These days Tarra Burk of Boyers can breathe a little easier, thanks to a double-lung transplant she received in 2018.

Burk, 27, was a 2010 graduate of Moniteau High School. After high school, she started working at the Bank of New York Mellon section of Iron Mountain's underground storage mine.

“I was born with cystic fibrosis. I took medicine to prolong the health of my lungs throughout my 20s,” said Burk.

But the medicines could only help her so long. Burk started to get sick and her health declined. She couldn't work anymore and was placed on the transplant list on Jan. 26, 2018.

“Your lungs pretty much turn to scar tissue. You can't get the oxygen,” Burk said.

After 183 days she got the call and went to UPMC Presbyterian for the operations.

The year 2019 was a record-breaking year for saving and healing lives in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia through organ, tissue and cornea donation, according to CORE, the nonprofit organization that facilitates organ, tissue and cornea donation in Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Chemung County, New York.

CORE made possible 661 life-saving organ transplants last year.

“The simplest way to look at it is it's the link between donors and donor families and recipients,” said Katelyn Metz, CORE's marketing and communications coordinator.

She said organ donations are nothing like the way they are portrayed on TV medical dramas with surgical teams standing by with coolers.

“Social workers work with them (relatives) through the process,” said Metz, when a patient is declared brain dead.

Only then does a CORE team arrive, said Metz.

The donation of organs either takes place at the hospital or the donor is taken to CORE's facility at RIDC Park in O'Hare Township, Allegheny County. The facility is equipped with three intensive care units and three operating theaters, as well as an on-site bereavement center.

Metz said eight patients can benefit from a single organ donor.

Organs donated include heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, lungs and intestine.

Two recipients will each get a kidney, and a liver can be split between two recipients.

“Kidneys are most in demand,” said Metz.

With the number of people waiting for a transplant far exceeding the organs, tissue and corneas that are available, the need is great. Nationally, nearly 113,000 people are awaiting an organ transplant.

At least 20 people will die each day without receiving one, including two from CORE's service area. For every person who donates their organs, tissue and corneas, up to 75 lives can be saved or dramatically improved.

Metz said people sometimes believe that donated organs go to people who have abused their bodies with drugs or alcohol.

“The overwhelming majority of recipients are people who need an organ not because of anything they've done to themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. In most cases, it's because of a genetic problem.”

Such as Berk's cystic fibrosis which necessitated her lung transplant.

She was in the hospital for 17 days before being sent back home where her mother cared for her until she was back on her feet.

For the rest of her life, she will have to take an array of medicines to prevent her body from rejecting her transplanted lungs and other medicines.

“I take a lot of pills. If that is what I have to do to stay alive, that is what I will do,” said Burk.

“I'm not sad about it. I can breathe,” she added.

She sees a doctor every three months at UPMC's Falk Clinic to get a bronchoscopy and be tested for rejection.

She's even started back to work at the Clarion River Brewing Co. in Clarion.

“I do a little bit of everything,” Burk said. “I'm a bartender, a waitress, a hostess. I do whatever they need me to do.”

Metz said it is easy to become an organ donor. When anyone visits a PennDOT Photo License Center to get a photo taken for a driver's license or ID card, they may choose to have the “Organ Donor” designation printed on the product.

There is no additional fee to have this designation placed on a driver's license or ID card at the time the photo is taken.

Metz said residents can also register as an organ donor in about 30 seconds by visiting CORE.org.

CORE can sometimes even connect a donor's family with the recipient of one of the organs, Metz said. But that's only if both sides agree. “They are comforted by the fact their loved one was able to give life to another,” said Metz.

“I haven't reached out to my donor family because I want to make sure I say the right thing,” said Burk. “I want to give them time to heal. They've just lost someone they loved.”