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.
It all began on April 19 when Megan Sobolik and her husband, Paul, took their daughter to the hospital.
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.
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Doctors decided it was in Cora’s best interest to send her to Mayo Clinic Hospital in Rochester.
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.
They were able to stabilize her and transport her, but things took a turn for the worst after Cora underwent a CAT scan.
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.
Her family stayed strong by her side and prayed for the little girl to wake up.
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.
It was news that no parent should ever have to be given in their lives.
“I dropped to my knees and cried and kept saying, ‘No, no, no, God, no,’” Meagan said. “I then felt numb and felt empty.”
After grieving the loss of their daughter, Meagan and Paul decided the best way to honor Cora’s legacy was to allow her to help others in need.
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 .
Meagan wanted the moment her daughter was going into organ donation surgery recorded for loved ones who couldn’t be there.
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.”
Meagan uploaded the emotional video to YouTube where it’s quickly gone viral.
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.”
Meagan said it’s incredibly difficult to re-watch the video of her daughter’s final moments.
But, she said “it also adds comfort to me to see [Cora] again and confirm what we did was the right thing to do.”
Cora’s legacy has indeed lived on, not just in the emotional video, but in the three people who received her donations.
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.”
Meagan hopes Cora’s story will encourage others to be organ donors.
“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
