Eric de la Cruz and his sister Veronica. Veronica is using social networking websites to raise money for a heart transplant for her brother.

Eric de la Cruz needs a heart transplant.  In his home state of Nevada, there are no doctors who perform the surgery that de la Cruz needs, and he’s unable to look out-of-state due to insurance restrictions.

Cruz’s sister, former CNN anchor Veronica de la Cruz, has been milking social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook like crazy over the last several weeks to raise money for her brother’s operation—and she’s gotten some help from some notable celebrities.

Trent Reznor, frontman of industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails, has taken up the cause and raised over $850,000 thanks to his 589,986 twitter followers.

“We’re showing the WORLD the power of a strong and committed community, and we’re quite possibly saving a life in the process,” wrote Reznor on his band’s website, nin.com. “This response has been overwhelming”

Reznor’s proposition was simple: for a $300 donation to Eric fans received 2 tickets to any of the shows on NIN’s recent tour with Jane’s Addiction, as well as a short meet-and-greet with the band before the show. For a $1200 donation fans could get the full VIP treatment including eating dinner with the band and watching the whole show from backstage. Reznor also encouraged reward-less donations of any amount.
With these incentives, the money started pouring in. Donations to Eric totaled a quarter of a million dollars less than 24 hours after Reznor announced the drive, and are quickly reaching a million.

A skateboard signed by legend Tony Hawk is among the incentives to donate to Help Eric.

He’s not stopping there—since he is out of space for VIPs at his tour stops, Sunday he announced a new partnership and incentive, this time with famous pro skateboarder Tony Hawk. For a $1000 donation you can have a signed copy of NIN’s rarest CD release, Still, as well as a skateboard signed by Hawk. Reznor also announced another partnership with tour-mates Jane’s Addiction, but the details of that are still in the works.

It’s pretty amazing to see Twitter used in such a humanitarian way. Despite all the complaints of people using it for useless nonsense, the virtues of the medium are definitely coming to light. In addition to Reznor’s help, other celebrities have donated tweets to the issue, including Al Roker, Demi Moore, P. Diddy, and Alyssa Milano.

With everyone’s help it’s looking like De la Cruz will be able to pay for his procedure if he can find a donor. Finding the donor now becomes the hard part, and it needs to happen pretty urgently–De la Cruz is in critical condition. Luckily the family knows they have thousands of people sending their thoughts and prayers through cyberspace.

“Happy 2 be able 2 lean on my Twitter friends 4 strength, even from Cyberspace. xo,” read a tweet from Veronica.