For most people, the thought of organ donation is a distant one, considered only briefly, if at all.

Janis West of North Huntingdon was one of those people.

"Until this happened to us, I hadn't given it much thought."

On June 24 of this year, the issue of organ donation came into West's life in a way she never could have imagined in her worst nightmare. Early in the afternoon, she received a phone call. Her 19-year-old daughter, Sarah Budd, had been in a car accident, and was taken by LifeFlight to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Thrown from the car, Sarah had suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head, and was declared brain dead. But when her family arrived at the hospital at 2 p.m., doctors said there still was something they could do.

"We knew that they were doing a lot of things with transplants at the hospital that are valuable," West says. A representative from the Center for Organ Recovery and Education, CORE, asked Sarah's family if they would consider donating her organs, and West, her husband, Sarah's father and two sisters went into a private room to decide.

After prayer and discussion, the family decided to go ahead and donate Sarah's kidneys, liver, heart valves and corneas.

"It was our prayer that if she couldn't live we would go ahead and do this so that someone else might," says West.

As hard as the decision was, West says she thinks it's the choice her daughter would have wanted. An outgoing, vivacious girl, Sarah always was kind, considerate and eager to help others, her mother says.

Belva Johnston, Sarah's grandmother, remembers her constant desire to brighten the lives of others.

"It's the way she acted with me. She would come in and talk to me and introduce me to her friends," Johnston says. "She would come in here with other people, and when she would go to leave she would come over and kiss me and say, 'Grandma, I love you.'"

Sarah's kindness touched the lives of many people. West recalls standing at the funeral home shortly after her death and seeing a couple she did not recognize. It turned out that their son was hospitalized, and Sarah had been visiting him in the hospital without any of her family knowing.

Although nothing can replace the daughter she lost, West takes comfort in the thought that Sarah will continue to help others.

"It was a horrific thing for us to endure, but hopefully they'll find the same peace in God that she found," says West. "She'd be proud."

Although West does not know the names of the people Sarah's organs benefited, CORE provided her with a basic description of each person and which organ they received.

Her right kidney went to a 56-year-old married man, and the left one went to a 40-year-old father of two young girls. Both men's health has improved dramatically, and the father is out of the hospital and able to spend Christmas at home with his daughters.

One of the corneas from Sarah's blue eyes, which shine out from West's pictures of her daughter, went to a little boy who was born blind. West says the operation gave the boy the chance to see for the first time in his life.

Few people dispute the good organ donation can do in the lives of others, but some families worry that donation will mar or damage their loved one's body and that they won't have any say in the process. West says she once thought that too, but now knows nothing could be further from the truth.

"I assure you that they take such good care of your loved ones," says West, adding that they had an open casket viewing for Sarah.

"They are extremely kind, and make no qualms about following relatives' requests."

West knows that donating Sarah's organs was the right decision, and that knowledge makes the pain a tiny bit easier to bear. While she would not wish the tragedy that befell her family on anyone else, she hopes that if it does, they too would find some consolation in the decision to donate.

"Although your loved one is not going to be there physically with you, wouldn't it be comforting to know that they were going to help someone else live a full and productive life? "And maybe someday you'll get to see the good that those people will do in the world."