Mom meets girl who received murdered baby's donated heart: 'It brought a sense of peace'
A mom who donated her infant son’s organs after he was killed by his stepfather recently had the opportunity to meet and bond with the little girl who received her baby’s heart four years prior.
Alicia Erchul got a call from her then-husband, Donald Crystalus, a few days after Halloween 2014. She had left him to babysit her two sons, 4-month-old Gabriel and his older brother, Aidan, in their Florida home. Crystalus told Erchul something was very wrong with Gabriel, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s arrest report said the boy was vomiting and wouldn’t stop crying.
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Gabriel was rushed to the hospital with severe swelling on his brain and died two days later. Shortly after, Crystalus was charged with second-degree murder. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. In the meantime, the grieving mom decided to donate Gabriel’s heart and liver to patients in need.
Meanwhile, in Birmingham, Alabama, a baby girl born a week apart from Gabriel was in a children’s hospital battling a congenital disorder that enlarged her heart and prevented it from pumping enough blood. Morgan Price’s only chance at survival was a heart transplant, and her family was desperate for a donor.
“We had our church praying for us. Our friends praying for us,” Morgan’s grandmother, Dorothy Johnson, told the Orlando Sentinel. On November 2, 2014, they received a call that would change their lives: Gabriel’s heart was available for Morgan. It was transplanted into the baby’s chest successfully and had been beating four years when Erchul finally was ready to write to the family that received her son’s heart.
Feeling that enough time had passed, Erchul started her email message in November 2018 with “I’m sorry it’s taken so many years to write you,” the Orlando Sentinel reported. It continued, “I didn’t want to shadow the joy you must have felt in receiving a necessary gift to save your child’s life by sharing about my son’s life. I have prayed every day for Morgan that her heart has grown stronger.”
The email was sent to Morgan’s family through a third party, the organ donation agency used to facilitate the transplant and protect the family’s identities. To Erchul’s surprise, Johnson replied right away, and the two moms began a dialogue. Finally, Johnson invited Erchul and her son, Aidan, to join her and Morgan on a family trip to Walt Disney World in March.
Erchul was nervous at first, but the anxiety quickly dissipated upon meeting Morgan and her family. Described as a sassy little girl who would put her hands on her hips to pose with Disney characters, Morgan warmed up quickly to Erchul and Aidan. She even let Erchul carry her around the Magic Kingdom and showed her the surgery scar, which Morgan called her “zipper.”
“She just held me so tightly,” Erchul told the Orlando Sentinel. “She wanted to hold my hand all the time. It’s brought a sense of peace that I didn’t realize I was missing.” Johnson added, “It was just incredible.”
After the three-day vacation — which included rides on Frozen Ever After at Epcot and front-row seats at the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom — came to a close, Morgan cried to leave Erchul and Aidan. Johnson promised that she and Morgan would stay in touch.
In the meantime, Morgan’s family left Erchul with a one-of-a-kind gift: a stuffed pink unicorn with a recording of Morgan’s heart beating inside of it. Aidan sleeps with it every night.
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