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Roxanne Watson
April 27, 2018
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ISSUE:
- 2018 Women of Distinction
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Roxanne Watson received a new heart in 2010 and has been on a mission to educate people about the life-saving value of organ donation. Through her work with New York’s Campaign 4 Life and Donate Life NY, she has personally signed up more than 10,000 potential donors –
believed to be a world record.
Ms. Watson's efforts have led Rockland County to the top position in the state for the number of organ donor sign-ups. She was also selected as one of six winners among more than 3,500 entries in a worldwide competition on life-changing goals for her efforts to create a global organ donor foundation.
In 2006, Ms. Watson, then 51, suffered a heart attack and was told she would need a transplant. The operation took place July 16, 2010, at Montefiore Medical Center. Her donor, 23-year-old Mike Bovill, was a Coast Guard serviceman who was returning to base on his motorcycle when he was struck by a truck on the George Washington Bridge on July 11, 2010.
“Michael Bovill was a true American hero who served his country proudly and saved five lives,” Ms. Watson says. She is determined to encourage as many people as possible to sign a donor card, especially minority populations which statistically need the most organs.
In 2016, Ms. Watson won a Folio: Eddie Award for, ”What a Silent Heart Attack Sounds Like,” an article published in the American Heart Association’s Heart Insight magazine. In 2017, she was featured in a national television advertising campaign and the home-improvement show, “George to the Rescue.”
Ms. Watson resides in Nanuet. She earned an AA in Liberal Arts: Humanities and Social Sciences in 1987 and a BA in History from Columbia University in 1989.
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