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The Gift of Life That Kept David Crosby Rocking
How Crosby’s life-saving liver transplant kept him with us for another 3 decades
When David Crosby died earlier this week, I remembered the time I briefly met him in a previous life and career, along with my colleagues from the South Carolina Organ Procurement Agency (aka SCOPA, now We Are Sharing Hope SC). Crosby was on tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1997, and, as a liver donation recipient himself, he allowed us to set up a table at the band’s concert in Spartanburg, SC. There we could hand out information about the value of organ donation, explain some of the misconceptions about donation, and encourage attendees to sign donor cards.
Crosby had received his liver transplant just three years earlier, an event, which was met with no small amount of controversy due to his previous issues with drinking, cocaine and heroin. Crosby had actually quit drugs during a prison stint in 1985—a method of sobering up Crosby himself described as “a shitty way to do it.” Still, in 1994, Crosby’s doctor told him he had contracted hepatitis C and was dying. His liver was functioning at just 20 percent. Fortunately, Crosby received his life-saving transplant a few weeks later. The speed with which he received his transplant, however, did draw scrutiny and criticism at the time, as it highlighted…
