My son, Ryan, died 7/7/2013 at age 24 after being accidentally shot while at his girlfriend’s family reunion in the Fort Worth area. This is the story of the accident…
Growing up in Wyoming, Ryan loved hunting and target shooting! He collected guns and was teaching his new girlfriend to target shoot. They had only been dating a month, but he told me on the phone how excited he was about her and how he wanted me to meet her. At her family reunion, on the 6th of July, I’m sure he was having fun talking with her uncle and cousin about his many hunting and shooting experiences. His girlfriend’s cousin was hosting the reunion at his house. He wanted to show her a shotgun he bought for his wife. It was in another room. Ryan stayed in the kitchen talking with her uncle. As the cousin went to show her the gun, it went off and shot Ryan through the wall. The pellets entered his head in three main places. Behind his right ear, above his ear and in his forehead. He fell down and complained that his head hurt. The kitchen was full of food as they were getting ready to eat. Children and relatives all seeing the horrible scene. The emergency services responded immediately and even life flighted him midway to the hospital. He was put on life support, but had no signs of brain activity. I begged the doctor and nurse to save my son… I prayed and pleaded with God!
My husband, daughter, and I were camping in the mountains back home in Wyoming when a sheriff found us late that night to let us know Ryan had been in an accident and we needed to get down the mountain to call the sheriff’s office in Texas and the Fort Worth hospital. There was no cell service on the mountain. Once we got down far enough to get service, my husband was calling the numbers he had been given, and my daughter was messaging my other son and Ryan’s girlfriend to find out what happened. I drove. I was shaking and crying for answers, but my husband insisted they would tell me more once we got home. As soon as I stepped out of the truck my husband told me that Ryan had been shot. I immediately lost the ability to stand. I fell to the ground and let out a scream/cry that I didn’t recognize as my own! That agonizing deep pain and sound you will only ever recognize if you too have lost your child. I talked with the people at the hospital who were caring for him for the next several hours, desperately trying to get a plane to Fort Worth to be with him. I kept saying “Shotguns don’t kill people!” Ryan was eventually pronounced brain dead and we had to make a choice to keep him alive on life support until I could get to him, or let him go and allow his organs to be donated to LifeGift. I knew the right thing to do… but it was very hard.
The nurse that took care of him was an absolute angel! With the sweetest, softest little southern accent, she talked to me and helped me to understand the severity of his condition. She stayed with Ryan, praying over him, singing songs of praise and talking about us, his family who loved him so very much. She stayed with him until the 3rd day, and thanked him for his gifts!
The last recipient report I received was in 2022. Ryan’s left lung recipient and right lung recipient are doing well. The right kidney recipient is in college & leading a normal life. She is very grateful to have received the transplant to go on living without being tied to dialysis. The left kidney/pancreas recipient- had rejected the pancreas but was able to keep the left kidney. His liver/heart recipient died in 2021. I am sure he and his family were so grateful to have those 8 years. What a gift indeed! What I wouldn’t have done for just one more moment with my son, and to know there are so many people able to be with their loved ones almost 10 years later, thanks to Ryan’s gifts, is nothing short of amazing!
I did not get to see him before he was cremated. I struggle with that, but like I said I knew the right thing to do was to allow others a chance to live!
I miss him every day without fail! I made a special effort in 2019 on what would have been his 30th birthday to remember and honor him. I sent a very small amount of his ashes with a Chinese lantern or a floating lantern to all of his friends and family around the world to send off on his birthday! It was AMAZING! Friends in Norway, Australia, Alaska, Hawaii, East Coast states, West Coast states and many many in between all sent his ashes out in his honor! They sent pictures and videos which I posted for all to see! I felt so proud that he was so loved!
The irony that something he loved so very much is the very thing that took his life was very hard for all his family and friends to grasp. Some people were very upset with Ryan’s girlfriend and her cousin, blaming them for negligence. I did not. I do not believe Ryan would have died unless it was God’s will. For the pellets to penetrate the wall and hit him in such a way as to take his life was an act only God could have orchestrated. I did not blame them and I told them that I forgave them and I insisted they forgive themselves. Ryan would want it that way.
Being a bereaved parent was too much on my husband. He took his own life 2 years and 9 months after Ryan’s death. That was a whole different kind of pain and grief that will never leave me either! But that will be another post…
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