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In August of 2013, 15-year-old Anthony Tremayne Stokes received an emergency heart transplant to ease his suffering from an acute case of dilated cardiomyopathy. According to the team of doctors, there was no doubt the procedure saved his young life.
But Stokes died two years later from something that no team of doctors could prevent.
During the summer of 2013, the medical staff at Children’s Healthcare in Atlanta, GA turned heads when they refused to put Anthony on a transplant waiting list because of the teen’s troubled past and their suspicion that he wouldn’t comply with a strict plan of medication and follow-up procedures. But given the pressure the doctors underwent, they reversed their decision, and on August 21st of that year, the young man received the vital and life-sustaining transplant.
About a month later, Stokes told news reporters that the heart transplant would be a sufficient reason for him to mend his ways and stay out of trouble. According to him, he needed a new heart, “So I can live a second chance. Get a second chance and do things I want to do.”
But on March 31st, not even two years after the surgery, Stokes’ lifeless body was pulled from a black Honda Accord at the conclusion of a high-speed chase involving Atlanta-area police. Stokes had carjacked the vehicle earlier that evening, and then tried to break into the home of an elderly woman, but fled the scene in the car once he realized she was home. It was during his hasty departure that Stokes caught the attention of a police officer patrolling the neighborhood which eventually ended in the fatal crash.
Sadly, this wasn’t Stokes’ first run-in with the law since his life-saving operation. He had been arrested earlier in January of 2015 for his involvement in planned criminal activity.
When reading this story, one wonders how something so tragic and unnecessary could happen. Why such a waste? Why such poor decisions after such a powerful second chance? The wisdom of Jesus is proven right again.
And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins- and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins. (Mark 2:22)
Click here for the online report.
Topics Illustrated Include:
Attitude
Bad Decisions
Criminal
Death
Doctor
Habits
Heart
Law
New Life
Police
Robbery
Second Chance
Sin
Sinful Nature
Surgery
Teens
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
