Wagga residents more generous than average at donating organs according to latest organ donor register data

The data, released by the Australian Organ Donor Register (AODR), shows 48 per cent of Wagga residents have registered to donate their organs after they die - seven per cent higher than the state average. Federation Shire had 52 per cent, Lockhart 51 per cent and Narrandera 50 per cent.

In Victoria, Wodonga's registration rate was 30 per cent, while Indigo had a rate of 35 per cent.

Towong's rate was 29 per cent, while Benalla and Moira councils achieved 28 per cent.

With so many residents still yet to come around, Maxwell mother and dual transplant recipient Nicole Kohlhagen is helping to break the stigma.

Mrs Kohlhagen has survived two liver transplants in her time and said she's lucky to be alive.

Growing up in Sydney in the early 1990s, she was a perfectly healthy 20-year-old university student when she suddenly became very ill.

While trying to figure out what was going wrong, hospital tests discovered she had lost most of her liver.

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"Within six weeks, I was in hospital, yellow from head to toe, and had basically gone into a coma with less than 24 hours to live," she said.

"I woke up and had received a liver transplant. At that age, it was such a blessing - to think I had a fresh chance to have a normal life, when I had come so close to death."

Seventeen years later, however, that liver developed an infection and Mrs Kohlhagen returned to hospital for a few months before she was fortunate to receive her second liver transplant.

"The first time around, the (medical staff) needed a liver of whatever description they could come up with, and the organ I received was slightly damaged," she said.

"Eventually I developed an uncontrollable infection in the organ's bile ducts and had to have a second transplant. But I was very lucky because things could have gone either way.

"Very few people are fortunate enough to get one, let alone two transplants. So don't take anything for granted because every day is a blessing and you never know when your time is up."

Mrs Kohlhagen encouraged people to donate.

"A lot of people don't (agree to) donate because they can't get past the idea that their (deceased) loved one won't be complete," she said. "I think that's a shame, because you can't use them when you're gone, but you can give someone else an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have.

"In my case, it would have been a really different story had I not been lucky on both occasions."

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