Greater love...

A young Marine. Dressed in full body armor. The sheer randomness of shrapnel from a suicide bomber means that somehow several pieces managed to go into unprotected areas of his neck and shoulders, and most damaging, under his helmet into his brain. Bleeding in his neck and shoulders, bleeding and swelling his brain. CPR is being performed as he is wheeled into our OR. Through the work of the surgeons and myself we stop the bleeding in his neck and shoulders. The neurosurgeon steps in and does his part. It's out of our hands and we step back to see what happens. The simple question is this: is the damage to his brain too severe? By damage, I mean from the shrapnel itself as well as the secondary injury to a brain that occurs when you require CPR (because the brain does not receive as much oxygen in that situation). Things do not go well overnight. Swelling in the brain progresses. He is put on a medevac plane home. It is highly unlikely that he will survive. The hope: he can make it home for his family and organ donation.

I have the organ donation block checked on my driver's license. I've never really given it much thought. Now the goal of our medical system is to keep this Marine alive so through his death others can live. I don't know how much organ recipients know about the donors. In this case, I hope they are told the full story. I hope they know that some young man left home to go fight in a war so that they could "sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." And because he did that, because he made the ultimate sacrifice, they are the ones who benefit. I also hope they know that there are people all along the medical chain who really wish it had not come to this. I am sure they have a serious need for the organs they will receive, yet all of us would rather he kept them. If you haven't figured it out yet, we don't like failing. It hurts. I know, it pales in comparison to the pain his family will experience, but nonetheless, it hurts.

Where have I heard this story before? Oh yeah:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13