Family donates teen’s organs after fatal crash
HOLLYWOOD Nay’Twaun Hardy’s organs were given to strangers after the teenwas hit by a car, and his survivors are hoping the community will help them bury their child.
“This tragedy has created an unexpected financial burdenfor the victim’s family,” Hollywood Police Sgt. Gene Cochenour said in a press statement.
Last Friday, Hardy, 14, was running after school across six lanes of Sheridan Street toward a basketball game when police say he was fatally struck by a 1997 Mercury GrandMarquis.
The teen attended Attucks Middle School inHollywood. He wrote poems and rap lyrics and also ran track, his mother, Kamilah Hardy, saidWednesday.
“He was into everything, and played the trombone, and loved theDance Central video game,” Hardy said.
After being told her son was brain dead, she registered him as an organ donor throughMemorial Regional Hospital and the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency.
Transplanted were his heart, kidneys and liver, gifts that saved four recipients who were once among 115,000 patients on the national waiting list that includes 4,401 hopefuls in Florida.
“This family is just an example of heroism and selflessness,” said Yilian Fraga, donor services manager with Life Alliance, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “For a parent to look past their grief, and think of other parents and people who need a life- saving transplant, is a testimony to what kind of mom this person is.”
The driver in the crash remained on the scene and was not charged in the investigation that is continuing, police said.
Nay’Twaun is also survived by his stepfather, Darryl Foster, and siblings Xiavier Foster, 13, and Akira Foster, 4.
Before the tragedy, Hardy said she was not an organ donor.
“Memorial showed me a whole other side of it that made me change my mind,” she said. “If my son can live on in somebody else ... it’s a bittersweet thing. You deal with the pain of losing your child. But you get that humbleness and pride, knowing that someone else’s child lived because of your selfless act. It really does help hurt less.”
Clark and Norris Home of Funerals in Dania Beach will accept donations toward the $ 6,000 cost for the teen’s cremation, coowner Nicholas Norris said. He can be reached at 954- 367- 2522.
Burial plans
are
incomplete.