MUM Vicki Luker is lucky to be alive after she blacked out and crashed her car on the A34.

Now she is hoping for a pancreas transplant which could change her life by stabilising her diabetes.

The mum-of-one is among 76 people in Oxfordshire waiting for a transplant, and she is calling for more people to sign up as organ donors as part of NHS Blood and Transplant's Organ Donation Week starting today.

Five people in the county died last year before receiving the transplant they needed.

Mrs Luker, 39, has brittle diabetes, a particularly hard-to-control type 1 diabetes which causes her blood sugar to rise and drop at rapid rates.

The former bank manager, who lives with husband Matthew, 42, and daughter Ellie, 14, in Wantage, said: "I have collapsed in the supermarket, on the train and about 10 years ago on the A34 near Winchester I rolled my car into a ditch and a lorry driver pulled me and Ellie out – we were lucky to be alive as the car was on its roof and we got away with cuts and bruises.

"I had a pancreatic islet transplant in 2011, but it failed and I have been on the waiting list ever since for a full pancreas transplant.

"The uncertainty of being on the waiting list is very difficult to deal with – you jump every time the phone rings.

"I sympathise with anyone who is on the list and would urge more people to sign up as organ donors.

"My body is deteriorating and I could also need a kidney transplant at a later date.

"When I was pregnant I went into a coma but luckily my sister found me – if she hadn't I would have been dead within a few hours and it's always in the back of my mind that I could go into a coma again."

Mrs Luker's condition means she has been forced to give up her banking career and can no longer drive.

Valerie Pinfold, 49, from Chipping Norton, her ex-partner Robert Dunbar, 53, and their daughter Robyn, 24, are also urging more people to sign up.

Ms Pinfold, a Co-op worker, needed a liver transplant after she was diagnosed with long-term liver damage.

She said: "In February last year I had a liver transplant but there was a complication and I needed a second one five days later.

"There wasn't much time to find me a second liver – the two people who came forward saved my life."

Ms Pinfold's daughter Robyn, 24, who works as a hairdresser, has been diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, an inherited condition and could need a transplant at a later date.

She said: "There is no knowing when I will need a transplant – it just depends and I would urge people to talk to their families about becoming an organ donor."

Miss Dunbar, whose sister Leah, 22, could also be affected by the condition in future, said so far she has persuaded 49 people to sign up as organ donors.

Her father, construction worker Mr Dunbar, from Shipton-under-Wychwood, received a kidney from his brother in 2011 after he was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease.

He said: "People really do need to sign up it could be them or their families needing an organ donation – it's life-changing."

Barman Filameno Cotaz, 41, who lives with wife Nhiad, 39, and son Kieron, eight, in Yarnton, had a kidney transplant in 2014 after being diagnosed with kidney failure resulting from high blood pressure.

He said: "Two years on and I am still going strong and that's down to the goodwill of the person who put in writing somewhere that he wanted to be an organ donor."

Sally Johnson, director of organ donation and transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said: "We recognise that families are approached about organ donation at a difficult time, but with almost all of us prepared to take an organ if we need one, we need to be ready to donate too."