3시간 전에 New York Daily News에 나온 얘기다. 17살 먹은 흑인청년이 온갓 나쁜 짓만 골라하다가 심장의 커져서 죽게 되었었다. 심장이식을 받드려 하니 그 같은 개망난이에게 귀한 심장을 주어서 살려놓으면 뭘하겠냐 하는 논란이 있었다고.

그러나 아직 어린나이다 보니 좋아질 가능성을 무시하고 과거의 행적을 문제삼아서 수술을 거부하는 것은 인간적 관점에서 지나치다 하여, 다른 사람을 제쳐서 살려놨던지가 2년 전... 그가 이식수술 받기 전에 자기가 다시 성한 몸이 되면 정말 사라다운 행실을 하겠다고 약속했다나?

웬걸... 어느 할머니네 집문을 박차고 들어가서 총질을 하고 그녀의 혼다차를 강탈해서 달리다가 행인을 치면서 전봇대를 들이박고 현장에서 골로갔다는 얘긴데, 당년 17살... 내가 늘 말하듯이, "인간은 변할 수가 없다"는 진리가 이번에도 틀림이 없게 됐구먼 그랴. 열당의 문제아들도 지들이 뭐라고 입방아를 찧어쌌더라도 한번 잘못된 인간은 무슨 수로도 고쳐질 수가 없을 겁니다. 아마도... I am telling you.

禪涅槃


New York Daily News
Sasha Goldstein
3 hrs ago

Anthony Tremayne Stokes. © DeKalb County Sheriff's Office Anthony Tremayne Stokes. He promised to change his misguided ways if he got a new heart, but evidently troubled Anthony Stokes was unable to make good on those vows.

The Georgia teen died Tuesday after a botched home invasion, crashing a stolen car and ending the troubled life that was extended back in 2013, when he got a controversial heart transplant.

Stokes, 17, wrecked the carjacked sedan into a pole as he tried to flee police, authorities said, and the elderly Roswell woman he shot during a botched robbery was in stable condition in a hospital.

The young man failed to make good on the promise he made to turn his life around in 2013, when he was denied a needed heart transplant because of behavioral issues and disobeying doctor’s orders.

At the time, Stokes was given six to nine months to live and the banishment by doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta was essentially a “death sentence,” said activists who came to his defense.

The story sparked national outrage and the hospital eventually relented, completing the surgery that August, just seven days after he was put on the transplant list. A total of 63 Georgia patients received a heart transplant in 2013, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, including six who were between the ages of 11 and 17.

The family said at the time that they did not know the donor's identity.

“He’s a young boy. He's going to make mistakes, but I still think he deserves a second chance,” said his mom Melencia Hamilton.

That chance ended this week just off the intersection of Alpharetta Highway and Hembree Road in Roswell, Ga., some 25 miles north of Atlanta, officials said.

Stokes, of Decatur, allegedly carjacked a Honda, then burst into a Roswell home and shot at an elderly woman as he tried to rob her, WSB-TV reported.

“A lady said a person kicked in the door to break into the house. She was inside the living room and saw the suspect, who was wearing a mask,” Lisa Holland, of the Roswell Police Department, told the news station.

Stokes then took off at a high speed as cops chased him down the highway. He smashed into a 33-year-old pedestrian before losing control and plowing into a pole.

"He did a fishtail spin going around to the right and hit a pedestrian. I saw a white shirt fly up in the air,” witness Claudia Kuklis told WSB.

Clementina Hernandez was hospitalized in stable condition, but Stokes, who was cut from the mangled wreckage, died later Tuesday at the hospital, police said.

The teen was wearing a court-ordered ankle monitoring bracelet for past fighting when he learned he had dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart that is too weak to pump enough blood.

The family and his supporters said Stokes was being punished “because he was poor, black and had trouble with the law, which his mother said was for fighting,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“So I can live a second chance,” Stokes told WSB as he fought to get on the transplant list nearly two years ago. “Get a second chance and do things I want to do.”

Photos from his Facebook page show selfies in which Stokes points a gun and clutches wads of cash. Several pictures feature Stokes smoking marijuana. Among his "likes" is the video game Grand Theft Auto 5.

In January, Stokes spent about three weeks in the DeKalb County Jail after an arrest for criminal attempt and possession of a tool for the commission of a crime, online county records show.

The hospital embroiled in the heart transplant controversy, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, declined Wednesday to answer specific questions about the medical incident some 20 months ago.

"We cannot provide any additional information about this tragic situation," a spokeswoman told the Daily News in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by this loss."

A person who has been the recipient of an organ transplant can also be an organ donor, according to Donate Life North Carolina. It's unclear if Stokes was an organ donor at the time of his death.