SEQUIM — Somewhere, in a city known only to a few, KayDee Campbell’s heart beats in the chest of someone who whose life depended on it.
It’s a pure, guileless heart that embodied joy and infectious warmth for 13 years, says her mother, Ronda Campbell.
That’s why Ronda decided to allow doctors to remove it on July 22, 2003, KayDee’s last day of life.
They would then place it into someone who would have died without it.
“There was no question,” Ronda said resolutely, thinking back on that agonizing day when doctors at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle told her that her golden-haired teenager, a Sequim Middle School student, would not survive the injuries she sustained in a car crash three days earlier.
Though she was also severely injured in the single-car wreck near Maple Valley, Ronda was lucid enough to understand what representatives from LifeCenter Northwest were telling her: that someone could live on through a donation of KayDee’s organs.
Nearly 15 months later, that thought keeps Ronda going through the tough times.
It’s also motivated her to put aside her own physical woes and take part in the annual “Legacy Walk,” a fund-raising event sponsored by the Bellevue-based nonprofit dedicated to facilitating organ donations between the families of recently deceased individuals and critically ill patients who often face certain death without their help.
Pledges sought
Saturday’s Legacy Walk counts on pledges sought by participants and gifts from contributors who support the efforts toward organ donation.
Ronda has managed to fill a couple of pledge sheets with friends and acquaintances eager to reward her for an effort many wouldn’t take.
It could be the longest 2.4 miles of her life.
She was riding in the front seat of the Oldsmobile that crashed into a utility pole following a playoff game in which KayDee’s Little League fastpitch softball team — the Sequim Pyros — had just won a playoff game in the 2003 state tournament, held in North Bend.
She sustained multiple injuries to her face and body and has undergone several surgeries to repair broken bones and damaged joints.
She has pins and rods inside her body and sometimes walks with a limp.
KayDee, riding in the back, hit her head and was rendered unconscious.
She never woke up.
The driver, Ray Chipman, was slightly injured. He pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and is serving 24 months in prison.
