Eduardo Rangel achieves the feat of running eight marathons in four days throughout Andalusia to promote organ donation

Rangel, of 40 years and native of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, has surpassed the 336 kilometers of race between Thursday and Sunday in all the provinces in a sporting and solidary challenge unpublished

 

 

Eduardo Rangel has successfully completed an unprecedented sports and solidarity challenge: running eight marathons in the eight Andalusian provinces during four days to promote organ donation. Between Thursday and Sunday, this neighbor of Sanlúcar de Barrameda has exceeded more than 336 kilometers and 35 hours in the race; almost 20 hours of bus travel; lack of sleep and extreme heat to achieve his great personal challenge.

 

Rangel has doubled this Sunday the distance of Filípides in Malaga and Sanlúcar, where he has been accompanied by more than one hundred athletes and half a thousand neighbors and friends at a party organized by the City Council throughout the afternoon. The Sanluqueño, of 40 years of age and who began to do sport three years ago to fight against overweight, has surprised everyone by his physical strength and his pace alive in the race despite the load of kilometers on his legs. The triathlete Ivan Tejero, who accompanied him in Malaga in the morning, stressed: "Today I learned that it is not the body that takes you, nor the mind, in the end it is the heart that takes you."

 

Two years ago, Eduardo Rangel's mother died at the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba waiting for a transplant that did not arrive. The experience marked in depth the Sanluqueño, who since then promotes sports challenges to sensitize the population about the crucial importance of becoming an organ donor, a gesture that can save lives.

 

In Sanlúcar, coinciding with Mother's Day, Rangel has completed the Desafío Andalucía Donate Lives. He addressed himself: "Today you will understand why I have done this madness and you will see how my greatest loss has been transformed into positive energy".

 

The Challenge has exceeded the 8.500 new organ donors (people with donor card) both through its website (www.donandovidas.com) and through the tents installed by the Regional Transplant Coordinator in each of the lines of goal. The figure almost doubles the average of new cards that are sold each year in Spain. The repercussion of Rangel's challenge in the media and in social networks, however, makes it impossible to know the depth of the awareness-raising work that this challenge has meant. "The goal is to make noise, although this challenge has meant a madness, it is a way to make this message go as far as possible, each new donor is one more hope to save a life," said the popular broker.

 

The Desafío Andalucía Donando Vidas is backed by the Junta de Andalucía and its relevance has been underlined by the Regional Transplant Coordination and by the numerous associations dedicated to promote organ donation. It has also had the support of the program La Báscula, of Canal Sur, the companies DKV Seguros, Belcón and Bosh Service, and of numerous personalities from the world of sports and communication who have sponsored each stage.

 

Donor card

There are two options when it comes to becoming an organ donor: requesting the donor card or by registering the anticipated vital will.

 

The donor card is a document that is requested and formalized during life and in which the will to donate organs and tissues after death is declared. This document is not essential in Spain to be a donor, although some people consider it useful and wish to take it as an additional commitment to their decided will to donate.

 

However, the possession of a donor card does not make it obvious that the family knows the desire to donate. The family will always be informed and consulted about the donation by the doctors of the hospital who attended the deceased after the illness or accident and they will be able to endorse the will of donation formally expressed some time ago.

 

The donor card is free and having it does not imply a definitive commitment, since it can be canceled whenever the donor wishes it. It is issued in public institutions -section of the Ministry, Hospital Transplant Coordinations, Hospital User Information Service, Health Centers, National Transplant Organization-; or private as associations of kidney patients and transplanted liver, heart or kidney.

 

Likewise, you can get your donor card by requesting it by mail to the Autonomous Transplant Coordination of the Andalusian Health Service or on the phone 901 40 00 43.

More information: www.donandovidas.es