This duo of articles explores two sides of the same tragedy. After his untimely death at age 21, Richard “Jr.” Norman’s heart spurred new life for organ donation recipient Ricky Guy.
RIP, Jr.
A blue cross decorated with the words “RIP JR” stands behind the guardrail and above the rocky shore lining the Lake Ray Roberts dam. It marks the place where, on Aug. 7, 2012, 21-year-old Richard “Jr.” Norman sustained injuries that would claim his life the following day.
Mother Felisa Chandler hasn’t visited that memorial. Since Jr.’s death on Aug. 8 of last year, she doesn’t travel across the dam on FM 455 unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“I’ve not been out there to see it,” she said. “I try my best not to have to cross over that dam. I’ve been over it a couple of times but if I don’t gotta go, I’m not going.”
That’s not the only way Chandler’s life has changed dramatically since last August, when her son was involved in a boating accident on Ray Roberts Lake. Jr. and fellow passenger Mario Salinas were ejected from a boat when it crashed into the dam at a high rate of speed. Salinas escaped the wreck with injuries to his stomach, head and leg, but Jr. landed headfirst on the rocky shore. He was considered brain dead at the scene.
When she got the call about the accident, Chandler and her husband Ricky initially thought they were headed to the scene to give her son a ride home. She knew things were more serious when she heard that Jr. was unconscious.
“He’d been the type of person that could pull himself out of anything,” she recalled. “If he got hurt, he’d just blow it off, but when I heard that he was unconscious I knew that it was not going to be good.”
A CareFlite helicopter took Jr. to a hospital in Plano and Chandler followed close behind. He was put on a ventilator but doctors said that he had suffered too much trauma during the crash. He died around 3 p.m. the next day and his organs were donated.
Now Chandler finds herself staying at home more often. On some days she’s able to keep the good memories of Jr. in the forefront of her mind, but it’s been a difficult loss to deal with. She said her husband and five daughters “are trying to be as strong as they can” for her sake.
“It’s hard to go day by day knowing that we’re not going to get to see him or hear him,” Chandler said.
“I expect him to walk through the door any minute like he’s coming home.”
Chandler remembers her son as a hard worker with a goofy sense of humor and a kind heart. An avid hunter and fisherman, Jr. “loved life,” she said.
“He was an all-around good kid. If you were hungry and he was hungry and he had $1, you were going to eat before he did,” she said. “He just loved life in general. Nothing ever seemed to get him down. He always had a smile on his face.”
“He was really cool, really nice guy,” agreed Salinas. “Give the shirt off his back for anybody. He didn’t even need to know you; if you’re in a bad situation, he’d help you out.”
Jr. and Salinas were close friends, he said, and things have been difficult since his death. Jr. was the leader of his group of friends, Salinas said, and without him things just haven’t been normal.
The same has been true for Chandler, who had a very close friendship with her son. She said they joked around constantly and whenever Jr. needed something, she was there.
“They say you’re not supposed to be friends with your kids, you’re supposed to be a parent. Well, me and Jr., we were like best friends, but he knew where friendship stopped and Momma stepped in,” Chandler said.
“It was a good relationship between me and him and now I don’t have that. I miss him so much. I lost my best friend.”
Now, Chandler remembers advice she offered to Jr. on his 20th birthday after the death of her father. Upset over the news, Jr. called his mother and said he just could not handle it.
“You know what? You’re a man. You are a grown man. I know it’s hard and I know it hurts, but you can handle this,” she told him.
Now she sees the wisdom in those words.
“God has a purpose,” she said. “I have to sit back and I have to take my own advice to him.”
Chandler, like Salinas and several more of Jr.’s friends and family, carries a reminder of her son on her at all times. Tattooed on her calf is a pair of his boots encircled by angel wings with the date of his birth and of his death.
“He was me,” she said. “That was me. That was my heart and that was my soul.”
That part of my son is still living
Ricky Guy was in the small town of Memphis, Texas, when he got the call he’d been waiting almost two years for.
It came from his wife, Becky, back at home in Amarillo. Doctors had finally found a heart strong enough to pump blood for the six-foot-nine basketball coach. After 22 months on the waiting list, he could finally get the transplant he so desperately needed.
“I was in shock thinking, is this really real? Is this fixing to really happen?” recalled Guy.
That call came at 11:49 a.m. Aug. 9, 2012, Guy remembers. A private pilot set his Learjet down in Memphis and flew Guy to Dallas for the surgery. By 7 p.m. that night he was prepped and heading into the operating room.
Now almost a year after the operation, Guy passed his annual with flying colors and is “doing absolutely wonderful,” he said.
“I’ve had this wonderful gift,” said Guy. “It’s just been a blessing.”
The gift of life that Guy received came from the late Richard Norman, Jr. and his mother, Felisa Chandler, of Pilot Point.
Norman, or “Jr.” as he was known to his friends and family, died on Aug. 8, 2012, at the age of 21 after a boating accident on Lake Ray Roberts the previous night. Chandler elected to donate his organs and his right kidney, left kidney and liver went to recipients waiting on transplant lists. His pancreas was donated to science and his heart went to Guy.
“He was such a healthy individual. His organs were in tremendous condition. I was blessed to be the one to receive the heart,” said Guy.
“There’s not a minute that goes by that I don’t thank God and thank [Chandler] and Jr. for what they’ve done for me.”
Before he got that Aug. 9 call, Guy was in a dire situation. In early 2010, the 53-year-old had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a condition marked by a deteriorated heart muscle. In his case, it’d be caused by a virus, though when and where he contracted it is unknown.
“When a virus attacks the heart, it causes the heart to dilate and expand sort of like a balloon,” explained Guy. “Once it expands on different occasions, it doesn’t go back down. That was kind of the case with mine.”
Now expanded in size and greatly weakened, Guy’s heart was pumping blood at an ejection rate of 5 percent, meaning his heart was pushing only 5 percent of its blood out with each beat. Normal hearts have an ejection rate between 50 and 60 percent.
After unsuccessfully trying to treat Guy’s condition with medication, doctors fitted him with a Left Ventricular Assist Device, or LVAD, and recommended him for a heart transplant. The LVAD pumped blood for Guy for the next 22 months while he waited for a heart strong enough to work for him. He waited around twice as long as most, he said.
During that time Guy’s life was changing. The lifelong athlete and coach of 30 years found he could no longer keep up with the sports he loved. The LVAD allowed him a little more movement, but he was unable to continue coaching.
All of that changed after his August surgery. Up and walking just two hours after receiving Jr.’s heart, Guy was back to teaching and coaching just one month after the procedure.
“That’s how fast I recuperated from it. It’s hard to describe the before and the after of how good I felt,” he said. “It’s just like taking an old ‘65 Chevy and putting a 2013 motor in it; just putting a brand new motor in an old car.”
That’s music to Chandler’s ears.
“It makes me feel good that I know that part of my son is still living,” she said. “His heart was the best thing about him. He was such a good kid; such a loving kid. I’m just glad his heart is still beating somewhere.”
Chandler opted to allow Guy and the other donor recipients to contact her when she donated Jr.’s organs. She’s heard from all four recipients and in January, she met Guy and his wife in Denton.
“When I first talked to [Guy] on the phone, I bet I talked to him for two-and-a-half hours,” she said. “It just felt right talking to him.”
“She’s a very good woman,” Guy said of Chandler. “I wouldn’t be sitting here right now having another chance in life if it wasn’t for her. There’s three other individuals out there right now that have been gifted, too, just like myself.”
Chandler brought her husband Ricky along for the meeting, as well as her daughter Tiffaney and her husband and Mario Salinas, who survived the crash that took Jr.’s life. Mrs. Guy brought along a stethoscope and gave Jr.’s family and friends the chance to listen to his heart beat once again.
Guy extended that offer to Chandler, but she turned him down.
“No,” she responded. “That man standing right there is all the proof I need that my son’s living on. I don’t need to hear his heart beat.”
For Guy, having Jr.’s heart came at a sad price.
“I would rather see a young man like him live to finish his life and enjoy his life than have to give it up. It’s sad what happened to him,” he said. “If I could change places with him right now, I’d do it a heartbeat.”
But Guy is still thankful for the gift he’s been given.
“I’ll never forget these people,” he said. “I’ll be in correspondence with them ‘til the day I die.”
These articles originally appeared in the Pilot Point Post-Signal.
Heather Michelle Tipton 