Rush to kidney transplant halted by speeding ticket

[okarol]

Published August 05, 2008 11:50 pm -

Rush to kidney transplant halted by speeding ticket

By Will Davis

FORSYTH, Ga. — A Moultrie man has been forced to pay a $280 speeding ticket to Monroe County despite the fact that he was rushing his son to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta for a life-saving kidney transplant.

Felton McCant Jr., 59, of Moultrie said he got a call from doctors on May 12 saying that a kidney had become available for his son. Time was of the essence because McCant was called only after the initial recipient was found to be too weak for surgery, said Dr. John Whelchel, head of transplantation at Piedmont Hospital. If the McCants could get to Atlanta quickly, the medical staff said, the kidney would be his.

McCant’s son, Felton McCant III, had been on the waiting list for a kidney after suffering a stroke, having his kidneys shut down and being partly paralyzed on his left side. So father McCant, who’s a veteran truck driver, called his local sheriff’s office in Colquitt County and asked what to do. They told him to turn on his headlights and hazard lights and if he was pulled over, to tell the officer what he was doing and he would have no problem. With his ailing son in the back seat of their Cadillac Deville, McCant drove north from Moultrie up I-75.

When he got to Monroe County, McCant was pulled over by deputy Tommy Herndon of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Herndon clocked him traveling 90 mph in a 65 mph.

McCant, who hadn’t had a speeding ticket since the 1960s, explained why he was speeding. He said Herndon responded that the first thing McCant was going to do was turn his hazard lights off, then proceeded to write him a speeding ticket.

Meanwhile, doctors couldn’t reach McCant on his cell phone and had to give the kidney to another patient.

Whelchel wrote the probate office, which adjudicates speeding tickets, explaining why McCant was speeding. And the Colquitt County sheriff wrote a letter as well. In turn, solicitor Kristi Rowell of the Monroe County Probate Court offered to drop the speeding ticket to 79 mph so it wouldn’t appear on McCant’s record, with a fine of $280. McCant accepted the plea agreement and paid his fine.

Rowell said she gave McCant a break by reducing the speed.

But Whelchel disagreed, and wrote Rowell and the Reporter to say so.

“I sincerely hope that if you are ever in a similar situation, those ruling on your case will have more compassion than your department did for McCant,” wrote Whelchel.

Whelchel said transplant patients often have to rush to the hospital when an organ becomes available because organs don’t live very long outside the body. He’s had other patients stopped, but usually they are allowed to continue once the situation is explained. In fact, some officers escort the patients toward their destination, said Whelchel.

Sheriff John Cary Bittick said he has to support his deputies and that since the case has gone through the court system, there’s not much he can do about it.

The Reporter has set up an account at Monroe County Bank for the McCants with hopes that Reporter readers will help the family recover the costs of the $280 speeding ticket. The Reporter pitched in $25 and Bittick donated another $25. As of this writing, the fund exceeds $300.

Still, Rowell said she takes issue with Whelchel’s claim that her office lacks compassion.

As for McCant, he said he’s just happy that his son was able to get another kidney three days later. He said his truck route has taken him through Monroe County twice a day for 39 years, and he has respect for local authorities. “I figured he was doing his job,” said McCant. “I’m not mad at anybody.”

http://www.moultrieobserver.com/local/local_story_218235013.html

[Sluff]

That would be my luck.

[KT0930]

I've driven the stretch from Forsyth to Atlanta, and there's nothing but small-town countryside there. It's very flat, so it's easy to get going pretty fast, unfortunately it's also absolutely necessary in a case like this, since Forsyth is about two hours from the south side of Atlanta and Piedmont is on the north side.

I've also met Dr. Whelchel - I had my transplant at Piedmont - and he will tell you EXACTLY what he thinks should and will happen. I sure wouldn't want to have been the one it was addressed to!

Whelchel started the program at Piedmont about 20 years ago after having started the one at Emory about 10 years prior to that. There's a display case outside the waiting room for clinic where a pair of his cowboy boots are on display - that's the only kind of shoe he ever wears, even in surgery.