Plane Crash

U-M plane crash

Organ donor generous, caring

Friends say she would be glad to help others

Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News
June 8, 2007

MILWAUKEE -- A city woman whose organs were aboard the plane that crashed Monday while returning to the University of Michigan was the type of person who would do anything for anyone, neighbors said.

She was generous in life so it was only natural that she would be the same in death, they said.

"She got along with everybody," said Guy Thomas, who lived next to the woman.

The name of the 48-year-old donor isn't being released by The Detroit News for privacy reasons.

Thomas, 68, said the woman regularly drove him to doctor's appointments and other errands.

Her death came as a shock to the humble neighborhood near downtown Milwaukee just off Interstate 43.

She appeared robust right up to her death, which happened Sunday, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office. She suffered a massive stroke.

The donor, who had worked for years as a bus driver for Milwaukee schools until the death of her mother, then took care of her father in their apartment, neighbors said.

"She got along with everybody," neighbor Rhonda Avery said. "She spoke every day with everybody."

Avery said she was shocked when an ambulance came to the woman's home and whisked her to the hospital.

She said the death was a tragedy, compounded by a second one, the crash of the plane carrying an organ transplant team back to the University of Michigan.

And now, with the weather preventing rescue teams from finding the wreckage site, the nightmare lingers on, she said.

For the third day Thursday, choppy waves prevented police and sheriff's divers from finding the fuselage in Lake Michigan 1.5 miles east of Milwaukee.

But Avery said she still keeps positive thoughts about the donor and what she has meant to others, alive and dead.

"That's the way she was," she said about the woman donating her lungs.

Although the woman's lungs didn't reach their destination, other donated organs were more successful, the donor's daughter told a local TV station this week.

The woman donated several organs and all but her pancreas found matches, the daughter said.

Still, the daughter was sad about the crash.

First she was praying on a miracle that her mom would recover from the stroke, which left her brain dead, the daughter said.

When that failed, she was consoled by another miracle, that her mom's death would still help someone else continue living.

But the plane crash compounded the tragedy.

"My mom's mission in life was to help others," the daughter said.

In a neighborhood that was a little quieter and sadder Thursday, friends of the donor agreed.

Thomas remembered how the woman also befriended cats.

She constantly talked about the animals, fed some in the neighborhood and harbored others in her home.

She didn't like to see anyone or anything not being cared for, Thomas said. "She's going to be missed," he said. "She's really going to be missed."

You can reach Francis X. Donnelly at 313-223-4186 or fdonnelly@detnews.com.