Forgive me for being dense, but can suicides donate organs?

I'm not sure how all that works and I realize I'll probably sound really dumb here. If a person is a registered organ donor and they were to commit suicide (sitting in running car in garage) and died by carbon monoxide poisoning, could the organs still be salvaged and donated? What factors determine this?

The methods used to commit suicide would prevent the organs from being suitable for donation. Organs for transplanting need to be harvested as soon after death as possible, to prevent damage from oxygen deprivation. Unless they died as the result of an intentional car accident, most methods render the organs unusable. And in most states, an autopsy is required, and you couldn't harvest the organs in that case at all.

Well, I imagine it would depnd on how the person killed themselves. certain organs remember poisons, etc...like the liver. Carbon monoxide...I'm not sure....but probably not the lungs.

The problem with organ donors when it comes to suicide is that very often the time between death and the time they are discovered are too great to make any organs viable. After death, tissue/organs/muscle all begin to die and deteriorate.

I don't think so, if the organs for donating were badly damaged. It IS monoxide posioning and even though they had a peaceful death (so I've heard) the organs could be too badly destroyed to the point there's no point in salvaging them.

I hope I helped you and Y!A is about asking questions, so you ahve no reason to feel stupid or dense. ^_^

I hope you aren't asking this in reference to yourself or anything!

I would think another factor in determining if the organs could be donated, in addition the the effect of the carbon monoxide on certain organs, would be the amount of time that passes between death and when the person is found.

Don't do it, you'll find a reason to stick around.