Director of ICU at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center awarded with “Life Saver Award”

SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY, Calif. – Special recognition to one of our local healthcare heroes on the front lines of these challenging times.

Aaron Thorne is the director of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo.

Thorne is the recipient of the annual "Life Saver Award" from Donor Network West for setting up the first and only Donation after Cardiac Death (DCD) Organ Donor Program in a San Luis Obispo County hospital.

Thorne has also helped coordinate the first COVID-19 patient donor program involving those who get very sick from the virus and find themselves in the ICU.

"I'm humbled, it was teamwork," said Thorne. "It was a team of multiple physicians and Donor Network West and it's going to be an amazing thing for the community, I'm humbled because lives will be saved as a result of this new policy."

Garrett Bryant from Donor Network West said, "It's once a year that Donor Network West chooses to honor a hospital participant who really does go above and beyond their normal scope of practice, and Aaron is really passionate about the donation program here in San Luis Obispo and it will have a ripple effect for other hospitals in the county."

In addition to running the ICU at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, Aaron Thorne is also in charge of the med-surge, dialysis, oncology and critical care units at the hospital.