NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – One year before Andree Blakemore and her family lost everything to hurricane Katrina, they lost Dougie. Right in front of their home at a crawfish boil, the 4-year-old was hit by a car.
“It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever witnessed. Because you see your child and he was in pain, and crying. And he didn’t know who I was,” Blakemore remembered. “The nurses put him back in bed and at that point he went to sleep or unconscious or whatever happened. He went to sleep and then he never woke up.”
As a nurse, Andree knew what she had to do.
“It wasn’t even a question in my mind that he was going to be an organ donor — even at 4-years-old, even though I’m a nurse,” Blakemore said. “How in the world is a four-year-old, a little tiny body, an organ donor? But they’re organ donors.”
Andree contacted the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency (LOPA).
Dougie’s heart valves saved the lives of two children.
His eyes saved the vision of two others.
And his liver saved the life of a little boy in Japan.
Tragic struck
Years later in 2011, Andree prayed for that little boy’s safety as she watched TV reports about the devastation in Japan after the tsunami.
“Maybe he didn’t make it through the storm. So many people got washed away. It’s almost like reliving your child’s death again,” Blakemore said. “It was very, very difficult. I was just devastated for quite a while, thinking maybe they didn`t make it.”
But he did.
LOPA put the two families in touch. They met in the Blakemore’s home in Metairie.
“I felt like it was an instant bond between two mothers. Of life. Of life and death,” Blakemore remembered. “The kid looked great. And he’s thriving. And he’s still doing well. We keep in touch to this day. We`re Facebook friends!”
Andree says one of her biggest missions is to tell people to communicate with their loved ones about organ donation before something life-threatening happens.
“I felt like my family was given the greatest gift from God because we were able to see his plan. For years of torture, you have this family picture. And in an instant, in a blink of an eye that picture changes. You change as a mother. You change as a family. It’s incredible how much it changes because even in your home, he’s everywhere and yet he’s nowhere.
“Somebody told me that one time and I said, ‘oh my gosh. That’s it! He’s everywhere, but he’s nowhere.’ And now he’s everywhere. He’s global! My son is global.”