ATLANTA — Editor's note: April is Donate Life Month. Visit this website to learn about registering as a donor, as nearly 3,000 Georgians are among the more than 100,000 people across the U.S. in need of a transplant.
Megan Twist had, as her sister describes it, "a personality that would light up the room." She was a Georgia Bulldog born and bred, an Athens native who grew up going to games at Sanford Stadium -- a pastime that formed one of her family's three pillars, as it often does in Athens: faith, family, football.
Megan also had an infectious laugh, a brilliant smile, and "never met a stranger anywhere she went," her sister said. In late 2016, she was 23 years old, freshly into a marketing career with the brightest of life paths ahead of her.
She tragically would never get to travel it, a car crash taking her life just at the time it was flourishing.
It was two days after Thanksgiving; the family had just been together in Athens to celebrate. Megan's sister Carolyn Hostetler described how they rushed to Jacksonville, where Megan was hospitalized, and met with a trauma team that advised them there was nothing they could do about the severe brain trauma Megan sustained in the crash.
They took time to be around her, cover her ICU room with family photos, share stories and tell her how much they love her -- and then say goodbye.
"She was just 23 years old, and she jogged five miles a day and was literally the picture of health -- and so now to see her lifeless, hooked up to a ventilator, was just gut-wrenching for my family," Hostetler said.
It was at this moment they learned, to their complete surprise, that Megan had registered just four months earlier to be an organ donor -- that there was a second part to her life story just beginning. Megan's organs went to five transplant recipients, giving each of them a precious lifeline that currently more than 100,000 people across the country are waiting on.
"My family, we were praying for that miracle, and God just answered it a little differently than we had pictured," Hostetler said. "She was the miracle and the answer to prayers for five other families."
One of the five lives saved was Richard Bremer's, who received Megan's lungs.
'I woke up as a Georgia fan'
Bremer had been on a transplant waiting list for three years when he got the call that he would be receiving new lungs. He didn't know it at that moment, but he would soon know they were Megan's.
He said the transplant surgery was extremely difficult and that he essentially flatlined for a portion of it. Bremer said he made a spiritual connection with Megan at that time.
"I got to meet Megan. She said, 'It wasn't my time, I couldn't stay there,'" he recalled. "She said, 'She'd be breathing for me, and she came back with me.'"
Bremer described Megan's calming influence and touch throughout the rest of the surgery, and he felt pieces of her wove into him.
One of those pieces wound up being her beloved Georgia Bulldogs, which was strange for Bremer, certainly, as a lifelong Florida Gators fan.
"I woke up as a Georgia fan," he said. "Breathing red and black now, that's just the way it is."
Megan was a massive Dawgs fan and is now buried in the Oconee Hill Cemetery adjacent to Sanford Stadium. Her sister said the family likes to think she still hears the roar of the crowd on Saturdays.
"I know that Megan is laughing so hard in heaven, knowing that her lungs went to a Florida Gator fan -- or former Florida Gator fan," Hostetler said. "So I just think it's perfect, honestly, that they (the lungs) went to Richard, now that he has burned all of his blue and orange and he's now a Dawg fan for life."
That newfound fandom was honored this month at UGA's Spring Game, where Megan's family and Richard were recognized as part of the school's recent partnership with LifeLink of Georgia, an effort to promote organ donation.
They all got to go on the field for a brief ceremony and receive game balls from Coach Kirby Smart.
"It was such an incredible moment for my family, just to again know that my sister's legacy is continuing on," Hostetler said.
'Such a great need'
Hostetler called the pieces of Megan that shine through in Richard, like his switch to root for the Dawgs, little "Godwinks."
They both said there are many of these. He pointed to a recent trip to a record store where a woman gave him, out of the blue, The Beatles' "Abbey Road." The Beatles were Megan's favorite band. He said he noticed himself strangely picking up some of her shopping habits.
Nothing took Megan's family back quite like the brownies, though. He said he was shopping, and they just "lit up on the shelf in the store for me." The first time he met Megan's family, he brought them the Ghirardelli brand. They said that was her trademark.
"Nobody outside of our family and inner circle would know that, it was never posted to social media, so we knew that was like a little Godwink that Megan was with Richard," Hostetler said.
Learning about Megan's decision to donate and connecting with Richard and his family left a profound impact on Hostetler, as well. She now works with LifeLink of Florida herself, spreading the message of how organ donation saves lives.
"There's such a great need for it in this country, and I can't think of any better way to honor my sister's legacy and honor all those that are waiting for those life-saving transplants," Hostetler said.
For Richard - who was also later hospitalized with COVID in 2021 and said Megan's lungs saved him twice -- organ donation gave him a second life, both as a Georgia football fan and in far larger ways.
"My son's had a little boy that I got to meet. And I got a little granddaughter that I wouldn't have got to meet," he said. "I mean, those are two grandkids that I wouldn't have even seen."
Megan's sister said the process gave the family peace in a time of unthinkable loss.
"Families never, ever expect that it's gonna be their loved one, but my family was so grateful that my sister did have an opportunity to be a hero and to save so many lives and touch so many lives through organ transplants," she said.
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