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Local residents make ultimate sacrifice

Date published: 11/18/2006

Michael Kane, 38, kidney recipient and tissue donor

Michael, a three-sport athlete at Stafford High School, was diagnosed with kidney disease as a teenager. His sister, Marribeth Thorpe, donated one of her kidneys to him in 1994.

Seven years later, the civil engineer and father of three suffered a heart attack while playing baseball. He'd just completed a commercial on behalf of Henrico Doctors' Hospital touting the benefits of organ donation.

His tissues were donated to needy patients.

Shannon heard a presentation by a kidney recipient while in the third grade at Battlefield Elementary. From then on, she was a staunch advocate for organ donation.

A skilled artist, the Mary Washington College graduate was searching for a way to make a difference when she was killed in a car accident near Lake of the Woods on May 1, 1998. Her heart, liver and kidneys saved four people. The man who received her heart recently became a father.

Terri was constantly in motion, whether twirling flaming torches during a Courtland High School football halftime show or juggling a double major at Mary Washington College.

She was working toward degrees in psychology and elementary education, with plans to teach kindergarten, when she suffered a brain injury and died in February 2001.

Her heart went to a man in North Carolina, and her liver helped another man in Virginia.

Rainey would come home from his job on an 800-head cattle farm with a grin on his face and rips in his clothes. He persuaded his mother to teach him to sew so he could repair the shirts and pants that got torn on the job.

He loved to hunt and farm and had started his own excavation company when he was killed in a car accident on July 5, 2003.

His tissue donations helped 59 people in 12 states and even one in Spain.

Jeni was a senior at Stafford High School when she was killed in a car accident on Halloween night 2000.

One of her heart valves saved the life of a 6-year-old Richmond boy.

Jeni had expressed interest in studying art in college. Stafford High awards two scholarships in honor of Jeni each year, one to an aspiring art student.

Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 11/18/2006