Website Honors Newlywed Killed in Crash, Urges Us to Follow Her Lead
Last week, an Omaha newlywed died after a car accident. Jessica Lutton-Bedient was just 26-years-old. But now some are hoping some good can arise from the tragedy. A website has started up urging others to follow Jessica's examples. One of those examples was giving the gift of life.
Reporter: Jaime McCutcheon | WOWT TV NBCLast week, an Omaha newlywed died after a car accident. Jessica Lutton-Bedient was just 26-years-old. But now some are hoping some good can arise from the tragedy. A website has started up urging others to follow Jessica's examples. One of those examples was giving the gift of life.
On October ninth at 144th and Q Streets, it was a scene as bad as it looked. Jessica Lutton-Bedient and her husband Tony were hit by an alleged drunk driver. Jessica died of her injuries a few days later.
But a website arose from that tragic day, hoping to find encouragement after such loss. It's called awholebunchofpeople.org, and it encourages all of us to follow Jessica's lead - a woman who in death gave life. Her heart, lungs and eyes were all donated to help others live.
It's a gift Sybil Jackson understands well. It was almost a year and a half ago when someone gave her life through a heart transplant.
"The week of Memorial Day, they noticed my right side [of my heart] was starting to fail, so they listed me Friday afternoon on the 22nd and I got the call Sunday the 24th and I went in and had my transplant on Memorial Day," explains Jackson.
Jackson is now celebrating life every day and wants to share the story of the importance of her life-saving gift so much that she wrote a book. She doesn't have the means to publish it right now, but hopes one day she can to share her story with others.
"It's important to me because for some reason I was picked to live, and I don't want to waste this gift," says Jackson.
It’s a gift Stephanie Lochmiller of the Nebraska Organ Recovery System tells us is not enough in number.
"About 20 people will die every day because they didn't get the life-saving organ transplant that they needed," explains Lochmiller. "Right now that national transplant waiting list is almost 110,000 people and at any given time here in Nebraska we have about 500 on that waiting list.”
Nebraska only has about 40 organ donors every year. This year, Jessica Lutton-Bedient was one of them, helping three people. Now a website in her honor asks us to follow her lead.
Jessica's physical gifts of organ transplants are just one of the things the website points out. There is the other way Jessica helped so many, which was by volunteering. We are encouraged to follow in Jessica's footsteps and donate our time.
Find out more at awholebunchofpeople.org.
And for more on organ transplants and how to become a donor, click here.
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