Late Night Phone Calls

The call came late in the night — 11:54 PM to be exact — but I was used to these types of calls. Working for an Organ Procurement Organization often meant going in to investigate potential organ donors at all hours of the day or night.

22-year-old male. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Resuscitated and viable for potential organ donation.

So I peeled myself out of bed, got dressed, and drove to the hospital.

Attempted suicide cases were my least favorite. The idea that someone could be so trapped in their own mental anguish that they’d want to take their own life, shook me to my core. And, it reminded me a little too much of the loss suicide had created in my own life.

I knew very little about this case, and already it felt too similar. Too familiar.

My friend’s name was Aaron, he was also 22, and just like the young man I was on my way to see at the hospital, Aaron had suffered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. At the hospital he was resuscitated, and less than 24 hours later, he’d been pronounced brain dead.

We were beside ourselves, my friends and myself. How could this have happened? We’d just been with him two days before — camping, drinking, singing, and laughing together as friends do. It couldn’t be true.

Tears rolled down my face as I recounted the memories. As I replayed the moments of shock and horror when that late night phone call came in. The three words that I’ll never forget.

Aaron killed himself.

This was not Aaron, though, I reminded myself. This was someone I did not know. Like Aaron, however, he was someone who could potentially save lives.

Aaron, as it turned out, was a perfect candidate for organ donation. I didn’t work his case, but later, I’d studied all the details. A heart for a hardworking father with three children. A kidney for a young woman who had been on dialysis for most of her young life. A liver for a former alcoholic who’d changed his ways long before his liver started failing.

For these people, our loss meant their hope. His life gone meant theirs renewed. How can something be so tragic, yet so beautiful at the same time?

This was a reality I faced on one end in my personal life; it was a reality I faced on the other end in my professional life.

So, I parked my car near the emergency room entrance, put on my brave face, and walked in.

12:45 AM

He was in room 862, and even from across the hall, I could see his near lifeless body, pulsating from the rhythmic pump of the ventilator.

The nurse was frantic, going back and forth between doctors, respiratory therapists, lab techs and the patient’s poor, distraught mother.

I knew the last thing she needed was another person to report to; and with everything so fresh, so tender, and with such a young, potential donor, An organ procurement agent would be the last person she’d want to talk to. So, I parked myself at a computer and started reading through his medical records. Lab results that had already come in, his entire documented medical history, notes from the nurses, the doctors, and anything else I could find.

I gathered the names of everyone involved, and prepared to seek them out — to gather more information.

Then, as I made my way toward the door, I caught the mother’s eye, and for the briefest moment, she transformed in to Aaron’s mother.

Aaron’s mother who I’d cried and shared stories with after Aaron’s death. Aaron’s mother who had found the note about where to find his body. Aaron’s mother, who had raced to the scene, only to arrive a few minutes too late.

In the seconds that passed before we both looked away, I sent this mother a silent prayer — that her baby would be saved. That his organs would stay his own. That she’d still have the chance at a life with him in it.

Then it happened. Code blue.

Everyone on the floor darted past me, making their way to room 862. He was having a cardiac arrest.

So, I steeled myself, and waited.

1:48 AM

10 minutes went by. 23 minutes. 45, and still nothing.

So they called it. Time of cardiac death. 2:33 AM. His organs would no longer be viable. It was over.

Heart heavy, I sank into my computer chair. His life lost, and all those potential lives he could have saved, also lost. How did I get myself caught up in such a cruel profession.

I typed up my notes, and afterwards, phoned the lead coordinator who’d sent me.

“He’s gone,” I said. “Time of death, 2:33 AM.”

“Okay,” she said. “You can go home.”

3:02 AM

I slipped through the ICU doors, found the elevator and made my way toward the exit.

The sliding doors opened, and to my surprise, a crowd had formed outside. Brothers, sisters, cousins, friends — people who had loved this young man — all merged together in a sea of utter devastation. They wailed in unison. Their audible pain and anguish filled the air. It was like a symphony of sadness, and the sound rippled through me, piercing me at my core.

Then, I saw her — the mother — and she saw me.

She didn’t know who I was or why I had been there; but in that moment, it didn’t matter. She’d seen me in the hospital wing, felt my silent prayer. She’d recognized my pain, as I had recognized hers.

My eyes welled, and my soul ached in a way that only someone who has been touched by suicide could ever understand. So I hugged her, and together we cried.