Centralight

10 centralight winter'14 April Lucas April Lucas died a hero. Just ask her dad. Then ask any of the four men who are alive today because the popular, 23-year-old graduate student donated her organs. April, '11, had just enrolled in CMU's hospital administration program when she suff ered a brain aneurysm while studying at her Mount Pleasant apartment in late 2011. She was fl own to Beaumont Health System in Royal Oak, where it was later determined the young woman from Wixom was brain dead. "She wasn't on the registry, so when the choice came for organ donation, I left it up to April's brother, Kevin," her dad Harry Lucas of Macomb says. "I said, 'You decide what she would want.'" Kevin gave the nod. "From that moment on, it was about honoring April," her dad says. "It's made a world of diff erence for all of us – and the recipients and their friends and families. Her gifts are precious." As Harry Lucas puts it, his daughter delivered four miracles that day, and three years later, he's met or at least talked with all of April's four organ recipients: "Bob — who got a kidney and her pancreas — is in his 50s and lives in Illinois. He has grandkids, he's working again, and he and his wife are now traveling." "Jared is 30 – he was near death when he received April's liver. He just graduated from nursing school." "And there's Bill from New York. He has April's lungs and will be able to see his daughter graduate from high school." "The other kidney went to Kassim, who lives in Grand Rapids, and he's since had a baby." Kassim Scott was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2007. The illness put much of his life on hold. He was just 30 and dialysis was sustaining him. "I was in and out of the hospital and barely able to work," he says. "I was at my lowest moment when I got the call that there was a kidney." The transplant gave Scott his life back and made it possible for him to start a family: Little Korrie is 20 months old. "I always wanted a daughter, and now I can run and play with her," he says. "And I'm getting married next year. I never would have had any of this without my transplant." Scott has talked with April's dad, but they've not yet met in person. When that day comes, he will say face to face what he's already told Lucas by phone: "Thank you for her donation. It completely changed my life around." Harry Lucas and his wife, Peggy — April's stepmom — now help promote donation in Michigan by talking publicly about their unimaginable tragedy and all the good that came after that. "I'm telling the story of every donor through my daughter," Harry says. "It's an unconditional gift to a complete stranger. And now we know that her time on earth meant more than those 23 years." > 80 percent of patients waiting for organs need a kidney PHOTO BY STEVE JESSMORE

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