Three seriously ill patients have reclaimed their lives after receiving a liver and two kidneys donated by a 38-year-old man who died of a brain hemorrhage late last month.

The operations became the city’s 27th case of successful donations in 2014 and the 100th since March, 2010, when China piloted voluntary organ donation programs in parts of the country.

Tianjin has seen a total of 870 registered voluntary donors, 663 of whom were registered after the implementation of the city’s legal provisions on organ donation, which took effect on March 1, 2013.

In the first seven months of 2014, 210 people registered for voluntary organ donation, accounting for 24.14 percent of the current total.

The city had the first legal document on organ donation in China, and took the lead in various fields, such as legal services, information reporting, and a mature mechanism for both the donors and recipients.

"We are devoted to providing disaster relief, rescue training, assistance and aid; we are involved in voluntary donations of blood-forming (hematopoietic) stem cells, human organs and the whole human body," said Zheng Xinjian, executive vice president of the Red Cross Society's Tianjin branch.

"The popularity rate of rescue training is about 50 percent to 80 percent across the world, leaving China far behind with an average rate of 1 percent ," Zheng said. "The rate in some first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai is no more than five percent, either."

Tianjin has trained a total of 147, 903 paramedics and about 1.46 million residents giving them a basic knowledge in first aid. In some high risk sectors, such as transportation, and power supply, the city organized trainings to improve their first aid knowledge and skills.

Edited by Brian Salter