After a gunman ended Emily Keyes’ life during an attack Sept. 27 at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Ellen and John Michael Keyes knew what they had to do. And when a chaplain approached them at St. Anthony Central Hospital about donating her organs, they never hesitated.
“She was able to donate eyes and lower-body bones and soft tissue,” Ellen Keyes told 9News. Other organs weren’t usable because her heart had stopped.
Still, strangers benefited.
Thanks to Emily’s cornea, a 62-year-old retired New York police officer can now see well enough again to live his life to the fullest.
“I couldn’t do small things, and driving got to be a problem,” said Julius Britto of Wilmington, N.C. On Oct. 3, a doctor at Duke University Medical Center attached one of Emily’s corneas in Britto’s right eye.
Britto said he hadn’t thought about the source of the cornea until he was contacted by John Michael Keyes.
“I had the opportunity to talk to (him),” Britto said.
There was more. The Keyes family shared some photos of Emily.
“That really touched me,” Britto said.
Emily and her twin brother, Casey, had signed up as donors when they applied for their Colorado driver’s licenses.
“We had discussed research and organ transplants,” Ellen Keyes said. “One of her cousins had to have heart valves replaced a few times, and it brought on a lot of discussion.”
Emily’s driver’s license had the heart logo, meaning groups could coordinate the harvesting of her corneas.
“I see through her eyes, and she’s constantly on my mind and in my thoughts,” Britto said.
A 25-year-old Florida man has also received a cornea transplant from Emily.
“It’s a small gift; it’s a large gift,” John Michael Keyes said. “People are really, really important. And corneas for somebody, that’s a gift … that could change somebody’s life.”
