It was like a plot out of CSI. Last week, my Alpha Chi Omega sorority sister, Lauren Huddleston, 28, went jogging on the Katy Trail in Dallas and then died in a freak accident. It wasn’t a mugger or a car who caused her head trauma, but a seemingly harmless bicycle. She was listening to her iPod and changed directions when a cyclist collided with her, forcing her head to the pavement and eventually leading to her death, later in a nearby hospital. That would leave most CSI detectives scratching their heads until the final minutes of the episode.
But the good news to this gruesome tale is that Huddleston saved lives once hers ended by donating her organs. A liver, two kidneys, two corneas, heart valves, skin and tissue were able to be used by others.
“She had a way to always make it about somebody else and not about her,” her brother, Charles Townsend, told reporters.
When I knew Huddleston during my four years at the University of Texas at Austin, she was one of the gems of what could be, at times, a catty sorority — always kind, never materialistic and ever so studious (she became an accountant). I owe her sweet demeanor to her upbringing. Her father shows no ill will toward the cyclist who struck his daughter. In a letter to friends and family, Carl Huddleston wrote: “He has to live the rest of his life with this. We hold no malice. It was just a bad situation waiting to happen.”
The family is also working with city officials to improve the safety of the trail, which one woman likened to “Christmas at NorthPark,” a crowded shopping center in the area, proving that more lives will be saved.
Huddleston’s funeral will be held at 1 o’clock this afternoon at First United Methodist Church in Dallas. Coming from Texas, I can tell you that the Huddleston home will be well fed and scented for weeks on end, so in lieu of casseroles and flowers, the family is asking you donate to the Southwest Transplant Foundation, 810 N. Zang Blvd., Dallas, Texas 75208.
Photo courtesy of Legacy Obituaries.