(Note from Erin: I am currently an organ donor and have been since I was 16, it’s right there on my driver’s license. But after the horror stories I’ve heard lately I’m reconsidering.)
Two months ago, Trenton McKinley, of Mobile, Ala., was hospitalized after a small utility trailer he was in flipped over. Suffering seven skull fractures from the accident, doctors told his parents their son “would never be normal again.”1
Recalling the accident Trenton says, “I hit the concrete and the trailer landed on top of my head. After that, I don’t remember anything.”2
According to his mother, Jennifer Reindl, he was dead for 15 minutes, “When he came back, they said he would never be normal again. They told me the oxidation problems would be so bad to his brain, that he would be a vegetable if he even made it.”3
In the days following the accident he was barely breathing so she decided to sign papers to donate his organs and help five children who needed transplants.
“Five kids needed organs that matched him. It was unfair to keep bringing him back, because it was just damaging his organs even more.”4
Then, just one day before doctors were going to take Trenton off of life support, the 13-year-old began showing signs of brain activity and movement, breathing on his own and speaking full sentences.
The teen still has a long way to go in his recovery and suffers from nerve pain and daily seizures. Thus far he’s had three brain surgeries and still needs to have another procedure to reconnect the missing piece of his skull. But, he’s alive and optimistic. He’s also pretty sure he went to heaven before he came back to life.
“I was in an open field walking straight. There’s no other explanation but God. There’s no other way. Even doctors said it.”5
