A CRAVEN teenager on the waiting list for a life saving double lung transplant has made a passionate appeal to people to carry a donor card.

Brave Katherine Ireland, 18, has seen two of her friends die in the last few weeks while they were on the waiting list for a transplant.

Katherine, of Meadow Croft, Cononley, suffers from cystic fibrosis and a lung transplant would mean she could live a virtually normal life.

She struck up a friendship with two fellow sufferers during her many visits to Seacroft Hospital in Leeds.

Tragically one of her friends died a month ago, leaving a four-year-old daughter, and 27-year-old Renata Buckross lost her battle against the disease at the weekend.

"It's easier to decide now if you want someone to live after you've died by donating your organs," Katherine told the Herald. "When somebody dies, donation is the last thing that their relatives are wanting to think about."

Katherine herself carries a donor card and said she had to think about it seriously before registering.

She was born with cystic fibrosis which was diagnosed at the age of eight months.

The disease affects her lungs which means that everyday tasks, such as walking and climbing stairs, make her extremely tired and out of breath.

"Anything which involves using energy takes me a long time," said Katherine, who also has to take vitamins and antibiotics, as well as spending several hours a day hooked up to an oxygen bottle.

She has been on the transplant waiting list since October and carries a pager around wherever she goes in case a donor is found.

"I felt a bit strange about going on the waiting list at first because I thought someone would have to die before I would get my operation," added Katherine.

"But that would happen anyway, whether they donated their lungs or not."

Her mother and father, Dave and Jan, are hoping to recruit Craven people to join the donor card scheme.

"We're going to have to do something, because we can't sit back and watch our daughter and others like her die," said Jan.

Cononley Post Office has agreed to carry donor card registration forms and they can also be obtained from the Cross Keys pub, Skipton, and local pharmacies.

Jan is hoping to recruit shoppers at Skipton's Morrisons on Wednesday April 22 and an announcement will be given out at Sunday's Keighley Cougar game.

Picture by Craven Herald photographer Stephen Garnett.

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