About 600 people in Colorado and Wyoming receive sight-restoring cornea transplants each year. If you have ever considered donating your corneas to this cause, here is some basic information about the transplants courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank, which has facilitated more than 30,000 transplants since 1982.
• Good eyesight is not a requirement to donate. In fact, some eye donors have been legally blind.
• Old age and poor health do not always preclude someone from being a donor. At the time of death, an evaluation is performed to determine if someone is medically eligible to donate.
• It costs families nothing to donate their loved one’s eye tissue, or to make any other anatomical gift.
• The option to have an open casket viewing or funeral is still available to families of donors. If a family chose not to tell others their loved one was a donor, no one would know by looking.
• There are no organized religions that forbid eye, organ or tissue donation.
You can become a donor by joining the Donate Life Colorado Organ & Tissue Donor Registry at the time of driver’s license renewal. You may also join by visiting .
