Ahead of Zaidee’s Cup, a five-year clash between Cobram and Barooga Football and Netball Clubs under-17 players, The News journalist Taylah Baker looked back at a time when an AFL player catapulted organ and tissue donation into national headlines.
It’s 2006.
When Neale Daniher, coach of Melbourne Football Club, hears the words ‘motor skills’, he thinks of four wheels and an engine.
Lance Franklin begins the season just 979 goals and 16 years away from kicking his 1000th major.
And a lanky 22-year-old from Yarrawonga almost dies during his seventh AFL game.
The clash between Geelong and Melbourne in late August was heading towards a nail-biting finish.
Trailing by seven points with less than 15 minutes left, Geelong’s hopes of reaching the finals were slipping away.
The Cats demanded a hero.
What they got was the fearless voltage of Tom Lonergan charging for the ball and crashing like thunder, copping a knee to the kidney in a marking contest against Demon Brad Miller.
It was enough to make any iron-stomached spectator recoil.
The game ended in a draw, putting a full stop to Geelong’s season.
And potentially Lonergan’s life.
The key forward was immediately hospitalised due to a lacerated kidney and severe internal bleeding.
The urgency of Lonergan’s condition led to emergency surgery, wherein his kidney was removed in an attempt to save his life.
Bag after bag of blood was strung up and pumped into his body, replenishing his entire blood supply not once, but twice.
Throughout this harrowing ordeal, a staggering total of 45 blood bags were administered.
He spent about five days in an induced coma to recover.
Throughout his 15 years on the footy field, Lonergan caused a bit of a sensation in the AFL and organ donation worlds.
Following the life-saving operation, he championed organ and tissue donation as an ambassador for Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation, as well as being an advocate for blood donation.
In 2016, Lonergan asked Melbourne and Geelong to sport Zaidee’s rainbow-coloured shoelaces to mark the 10th anniversary of his grave yet transformative accident.
After serving as an impassable boulder in the Cats’ backline for over a decade, Lonergan decided to retire.
With one kidney and 209 games under his belt, he officially hung up the boots in 2017.
After that, things got quiet. Too quiet.
Since 2018, I haven’t missed a game of my beloved Melbourne Demons.
I also haven’t seen a single rainbow lace in the competition.
What makes some causes carry on and become yearly AFL traditions while others, such as a Zaidee’s Round, become unstuck?
Why do we feel organ and tissue donation is a tougher pill to swallow?
Perhaps the answer lies in Australia’s attitudes to death.
Whatever words you choose — kicked the bucket, croaked, passed away — death isn’t easy to talk about.
‘Dead set’, a 2022 survey commissioned by The Groundswell Project Australia, revealed that almost nine out of 10 Australian adults believed in the importance of end-of-life planning.
However, only one-third of us have put that belief into action.
Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation’s message is to have the conversation.
At a time when organ and tissue donation rates are dwindling, and thousands succumb while on the transplant waitlist each year, igniting a dialogue has never been more critical.
Accepting that we’re not here forever is one of the greatest joys in life.
It drives us to prioritise time, clutch at fleeting moments, take leaps of faith when scared and just get on with living.
Author Rachel C. Lewis published a brilliant essay many years ago saying she loved being horribly straightforward and living life as such because there was nothing more risky than pretending not to care.
One day, I might get hit by a bus.
Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be ... we are young, and we are human, and we are beautiful, and we are not as in control as we think we are.
And that’s when the magic of mortality arises.
Rather than wearing blinkers, we can fully embrace life with all its impermanence, and when our time comes, we can give the gift of life to somebody else by becoming an organ and tissue donor.
A conversation shouldn’t be feared. Nor should it be delayed.
You never know when the bus is coming.
To learn more about Zaidee’s Rainbow Foundation and organ and tissue donation in Australia, visit https://www.zaidee.org/