In 2016, my daughter was 29 working a full-time job, going to school, running half marathons and had the whole rest of her life ahead of her. She had also recently started dating a new guy. Unfortunately, on January 16 that all changed.
Katy fell down a set of basement steps and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I rushed to the hospital on the morning of January 24 and basically spent that entire day sitting by her side, hoping and praying that she would recover. There was obviously talk of potential brain damage. I knew in my heart that my girl would not want to survive like that and so sometime after midnight on the advice of the medical personnel, we made the decision to stop life support.
Katy was not a registered donor. However, after meeting with the LifeCenter [now Network for Hope] people, her father and I made the difficult decision to donate her organs. Katy saved five lives through our decision. Katy was a very giving person and we knew this was the decision she would have made on her own if she had that capability.
-Terri Young, Katy’s mother
She lives in Cold Spring, Kentucky.
