A mother has shared heartbreaking footage of her daughter's final moments before the 1-year-old was taken into surgery to donate her organs, People reported.
A mother has shared heartbreaking footage of her daughter's final moments before the 1-year-old was taken into surgery to donate her organs, People reported.
There, 1-year-old Coralynn “Cora” was found to be having difficulty breathing. The family would later learn this would be due to parainfluenza complications.
However, in order to transport the toddler, they needed to sedate and intubate her. According to a GoFundMe page established by Cora's aunt, the little girl's heart stopped beating during the procedure.
The scan showed the toddler had brain damage. Doctors told her parents there was a chance she would wake up, but she would have a "different life" than she had before.
However, after her brain began swelling and she was taken for another emergency CAT scan, her parents were given the devastating news that their daughter was brain dead.
“I dropped to my knees and cried and kept saying, ‘No, no, no, God, no,'” Meagan said. “I then felt numb and felt empty.”
The couple made the decision to donate Cora's organs.
“When we knew that she wasn’t ever going to wake and that she was gone mentally, we knew that she would want her organs to help people in need,” Meagan told People.
A chaplain at Mayo Clinic recorded Cora's bed being wheeled towards the surgery unit, flanked by her parents, as doctors and nurses line the hallway and sing "Amazing Grace."
She praised the staff at the hospital for giving her daughter the sendoff she deserved.
“The staff at Mayo was more than any family could ask for,” Meagan said. “I was speechless, and it was truly wonderful to see and feel so much love and support for our little girl.”
But, she said "it also adds comfort to me to see [Cora] again and confirm what we did was the right thing to do."
These recipients include a 1-year-old boy who received her heart, a 1-year-old girl who received her liver and a 41-year-old woman who received her kidneys.
“She is going to be living on within three different people,” Meagan said. “She isn’t really gone, she lives on in her legacy.”
“When your child donates their organs, they live on in someone else [and] they are saving people that otherwise [might] not be saved without your child’s gifts."
h/t: People