LEWISTON — Debra Morse is holding a yard sale this morning — but not for the typical reasons.

Morse, who went from a high school dropout and teenage mom to part of a surgical team flying all over the country to recover organs for transplants, is raising money for her latest adventure.

The Central Maine Medical Center surgical technician will join the Flying Doctors of America to help “the poorest of the poor” in a Third World country in the South Pacific.

“Samoa is way off the tourist track,” Morse said while on break outside an OR room. “I’ve been told to be prepared, what food to bring, power bars, peanut butter, something to put under your nose for smell.”

She’s using vacation time for the trip “because I want to give back,” Morse said.

She must raise $3,000 to cover her expenses, transportation, lodging and meals. Her resources are low, she said, because a 2007 arm injury left her disabled and took away income.

Growing up in North Jay, Morse, 50, never imagined herself in scrubs. She married her high school sweetheart when she was 16. They wanted a family. “I delivered when I was 17,” she said. The marriage didn’t last. “We were just kids.”

She went back to school and finished her high school education, then became a certified nursing assistant at Franklin Memorial Hospital. There, Dr. William Lambert noticed “how every time a patient came in, I would remember his set-up. I knew how to anticipate him. I’d have everything ready.”

He recommended she go to the Maine Medical Center School of Surgical Technology. She did, and began assisting in operations. The first time she helped with an organ procurement, “I knew that’s what I wanted to do for work.”

Morse eventually worked for the New England Organ Bank in Boston.

“I’d work many, many hours traveling the country doing organ recovery for life-saving: heart, lung, kidney, pancreas,” she said. The job meant missing holidays and family time. “I’d tell my son, ‘Isn’t it more important I go get lungs to save someone’s life?’”

She gave up that job in 2006 to be closer to family, taking a job at Maine Medical Center in Portland. “One day I fell and broke my arm,” she said. “I didn’t just break it a little bit.”

The break was a bad one that inflicted nerve damage and needed four surgeries, leaving her disabled. “I could barely get myself dressed,” she said. She looked for work she could do with her weakened arm. “I can’t ever see my life outside the operating room.”

Out of work and without health care, she got a job at Central Maine Medical Center. Her arm had improved so she could work but not in the high-pressure jobs of organ recovery or cardiac. She works in the maternity ward helping with cesarean sections.

She likes her work and is grateful to CMMC for finding a job she could do. “This hospital has stood by me,” she said. She’s tried to work part time for the New England Organ Bank, but her arm isn’t strong enough.

“It’s left a huge hole in my heart not to be able to do it,” she said. “I like going to bed knowing I helped save someone’s life.”

Looking for more challenges, the mission to Samoa in August will help fill that void, as will her recent role as a student.

She has gone back to school to get her bachelor’s degree in health care administration. “I know what it’s like to be poor with no insurance, not able to go to work,” she said.

8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, June 12

16 Laase Ave., Lewiston (off Main Street near L-A Harley Davidson)

For more,  go to: Medical Mission to America Samoa at www.facebook.com