Courtesy of Saed Hindash.
Michael Mania Jr. didn’t know what to say.
For the first time, he was meeting the parents of the woman whose lungs draw his breath. Her death, a tragedy for one family, had provided a miracle for another: the organ transplant Mania so needed.
What would he say? What could he say?
Mania, a 56-year-old father of two from Bayville, N.J., had suffered from sarcoidosis — an inflammation in the lungs — following a botched surgery in 2003. Ten years later, he found himself on a transplant waiting list for nearly six months.
Sam’s lungs were given him on Sept. 7, 2013. The otherwise-healthy 23-year-old from Alpha — a three-year field hockey starter at Albright — had died days earlier after suffering a brain aneurysm while driving.
Within days of her death, Sam’s family donated her organs. Her heart, lungs and liver saved three lives, they said.
Within weeks, the first Sprint for Sam 5K was run in Pohatcong Township, raising some $4,000 for the Philadelphia-based Gift of Life Howie’s House, which provides patients awaiting organ transplants a place to stay.