Organ donors, life celebrated at service
In life, North Huntingdon resident David Schrecengost was an auto mechanic who helped fix the vehicles of many area motorists.
When Schrecengost was killed in 1997 by a drunk driver at age 33, his grief-stricken parents, Robert and Joann, did what they said he would want -- allow him to continue to help humans in a different way in death.
"We knew he would want to keep helping people fix things, so we permitted his organs to be donated for transplant recipients," said Joann Schrecengost, adding that Robert's organs, muscle tissue and bone marrow live on in more than 200 people. "Knowing that he's helped so many ... that's a big consolation, it really is. He didn't die."
An even bigger consolation came to the Schrecengosts when they met an Erie resident who received David's pancreas, a kidney and a portion of his bone marrow.
"That person required dialysis and chemotherapy before his transplant. Today he no longer needs either," she said. "It truly was a blessing."
On Saturday, Joann Schrecengost joined roughly 70 others, among them the families of organ donor and recipients, at a "Celebration of Life" service at the St. Joseph Center Chapel in Unity Township. The service was held in conjunction with National Donor Sabbath, which is observed throughout November.
The service featured messages from two people.
First was Malinda Cecchini, the Salem Township mother of the late Kimberly Cecchini, who died in 2001 at age 16 from injuries she sustained in an automobile accident. Cecchini spoke of her decision to give consent for her daughter's organs to be donated, the people who have been helped, and her involvement since with the Center for Organ Recovery & Education, known as CORE.
"Kimberly had a hand in all of this, and she has brought almost all of you into my life in one way or another," Cecchini said. "Her liver recipient celebrated her 60 birthday last January. One of her kidney recipients returned to college. Kimberly lives on in Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, Ohio and right here in Pennsylvania."
Lindsey Fuhrman, 20, who received a heart transplant thanks to an organ donor, stuttered through sobs while describing the intense emotion she felt in meeting some of those who she said have so graciously permitted such donations to take place. Fuhrman appeared last week on the Tyra Banks television show to meet her donor family for the first time.
"Meeting them gave me a feeling of such healing and such peace, and I knew what it must be like to be on the other side, and I never understood that," Fuhrman said.
Retired Diocese of Greensburg Bishop Anthony Bosco, who officiated the service, said organ donation is a way to cross the lines of religion in giving the ultimate gift.
"There's no such thing as a Jewish kidney, or Muslim lungs, or Catholic heart muscles," Bosco said. "We are human, and this is one area where we can be very, very ecumenical."
Because an average of 17 people in need of a transplant die each day in America, more help is always needed, said CORE official Shelly Morningstar.
More information on CORE is available by calling 800-DONORS-7 or accessing www.core.org/ .
