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Family of cyclist struck and killed, to donate all of cyclist's organs

Cyclist struck by mini-van

(WHAS11) - The funeral is Tuesday for the bicyclist struck by a van last week on Bardstown Road.

Jen Futrell, 29, died over the weekend. Her family has become an inspiration -- talking about their choice to donate her organs. 

“It was done with great care and great reverence and great love,” Jim Futrell, Jen’s father, said, crediting the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates with helping the family carry out Jen's final act of love.

It was immediately clear to Jen Futrell's family that she would not recover.  She was an activist, musician and artist.  In fact, WHAS11 News spoke to her after an artist studio fire in January.

On that day, she described the fire as “the wreckage of our dreams.”

Seven months later, Futrell's family was faced with the wreckage of her accident.

Her father says “Jenny” was not interested in the material aspects of life.  And -- as she progressed toward brain death, her final legacy was life.

“Around the bedside (it) brought us together as people as kind of like a new effort, or a new cause,” Futrell said, “to see other people benefit from this tragedy.”

Jim Futrell says the organ donation “validates life over emptiness.”

“Organ donation is not like it is on TV (where they) pull the plug and it’s like replacing batteries.  It's a very difficult technical and complex process.”

He says KODA and doctors recognize the tremendous value of the gift of someone’s body.

Sandy Hickey of  Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates knows what the Futrell’s are going through.   Her son, Paul, was killed in a car accident nine years ago. 

“The family will know probably within a week to ten days what organs were successfully transplanted,” Hickey said, “They will even know a little bit about the recipient,  the age, marital status, if there's children, grandchildren, what their occupation was and what state they were from.”

Paul Hickey had made his wishes known.

“We knew he wanted to be an organ donor,” his mother explained, “because we had had that conversation shortly after he got his drivers license and we were watching I think E-R one night on TV.  And he said, ‘Dad, I think if anything happened to me I would want to be an organ donor, wouldn't you?’

And it was just as simple as that.  Then, when we were told our son was brain dead, we knew that's what he wanted so therefore it made it very easy to make that decision.”

Hickey encourages anyone with a similar desire to share it with their family.

Kentucky now has a donor registry - you can sign up when you get a new drivers license or online. 

It's legally binding, but victims' families have the final say. 

Almost anyone can become a tissue or bone donor, but organ donors come from only about one percent of deaths – those in which the patient is declared brain dead.

As a result, only about 100 people were organ donors in Kentucky last year.

Despite the relative rarity of organ transplants,  surgeons at Jewish Hospital in Louisville have performed four lung transplants in a span of just ten days.  One or two of them could be as a result of Jen Futrell’s tragedy.

“The day before (the transplant) they are on oxygen, lethargic, gasping for air,”  surgeon Mark Slaughter told WHAS11’s Joe Arnold, “the following morning, for them to be awake, alert, talking to you, asking to have a breathing tube removed…. and as soon as it is telling you how much easier they can breathe, is an incredible feeling of joy.”

It's estimated that between 50 to 100 people can benefit from one organ donor, with organs like hearts, kidneys, liver and the pancreas.

“Often the pancreas patients, they're very young,” said Dr. Joe Buell of Jewish Hospital’s transplant team, “They can be anywhere from 18 to 25 years old and to give them the pancreas, you give them a whole new 60 years. that's amazing.”

Jim Futrell says “Jenny” was vibrant, outgoing and had a tremendous network of friends. She helped convert a diesel vehicle to run on vegetable oil and he says she was not interested in material aspects of life,

“Her focus was always on connections,” Jim Futrell said, “kind of the ‘web of life’ with other people.” 

In death, as well, Jen Futrell is fulfilling her life’s focus.

Click here for more information on organ donation