David deSabla Jr., Organ Donor, Maryland 1981- 2010




In February 2010, David deSabla Jr. had gone skiing with friends in Garrett County. The 29-year-old hurt his knee in a fall and later stopped breathing.

He was an organ donor and DeHaven later learned that his liver, heart and kidney had been transplanted into three different men. His donation, which helped provide a new heart for Baltimore resident Michael Yater, is one of 30 stories that will be used during the month of April in an effort to encourage organ donation.

"He was just a really good guy and it was one of those horrible, tragic, freak things that happen," said DeHaven, of Annapolis. "We're just the kind of people where (organ donation) wasn't even something we thought about; it was just what you do."

Friends and relatives described deSabla as having the "heart of a lion." At his memorial service, friends told about how he took a homeless man into 7-Eleven and told him to pick out anything he needed, and how he bought diamond earrings for his friends' newborn daughters. He was the oldest of four and in 2007, deSabla earned a culinary degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.