While fatal accidents are the nightmare of every parent, sometimes they can have an uplifting element — through organ donation.
In April 2010, four San Antonio teenagers were traveling at a high speed on Highway 27 when they came to the traffic light at Loop 534. Unable to stop their Toyota sedan, they swerved into the opposite lane to avoid several cars stopped at a traffic light. The Toyota crashed head-on to a Chevrolet Silverado and then hit a Dodge truck at the light. All four teenagers sustained serious injuries and died within hours of the tragic car accident.
The mother of one of the 17-year-old boys decided to donate her son’s organs.
Over a year after his death, the boy’s mother was still able to feel a connection with her son when she met two of the beneficiaries of his organ donation. Last week, the San Antonio woman met two men who are alive today thanks to her son’s heart and her son’s kidney. The mother said, “Even though it’s not in his chest, that’s still my son’s heart. That’s still my son’s kidney that’s still keeping these people living.”
The 17-year-old’s mother said that it was not an easy decision to donate her son’s organs, but she has no regrets doing it knowing that his life saved two others.
According to the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance more than 112,000 people are on waiting lists for organs — of those, almost 11,000 are Texans. To learn more about organ donation in Texas, visit donatelifetexas.org.
Source: KSAT.com, “Organ Donation Unites Two Families,” 10/16/11.