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Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Thanks for the miracle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you don’t believe in miracles, and can’t see society’s greater good, listen up.
Last Tuesday, I wrote about Jack Stabinsky, a 53-year-old multiple sclerosis patient. He lived in the Life Care Center of Gwinnett, a nursing home in Lawrenceville.
He’d done some research and learned that the Boston Home, a nursing home in Massachusetts, offers specialized long-term care for people with physical disabilities, notably MS patients. After being on a waiting list several months, Stabinsky got word on July 6 that he’d been admitted.
The facility couldn’t hold a place for him indefinitely, though, due to high demand. That left Stabinsky, who uses an electric scooter and wears a catheter, with only a few days to accept his bed.
And that presented problems.
Stabinsky would need medical transport, preferably by air, with a nurse. Once he arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport, he’d need an ambulance to take him to the facility. Dick Deacon and other friends of the local MS community worked frantically to make arrangements for the expensive trip.
And on Thursday, Stabinsky made it. He’s in Room No. 105, bed No. 5.
Thanks to you.
Deacon’s phones began ringing at 8 a.m. the day the column ran. They didn’t stop till about 10 that night. I fielded my share of calls and e-mails, too.
Strangers offered up ideas, frequent flyer miles, buddy passes, unused tickets, and money (one reader offered $1,000).
“We can’t express adequately our appreciation for the love expressed to Jack,” Dick and Sybil Deacon wrote in an e-mail. “We talked on the phone to [more than] 100 people we had never met, yet now consider as friends.”
So do Stabinsky’s relatives.
Several in Pennsylvania and Maryland e-mailed to show their gratitude to our county. Some plan to send photos when they visit “Uncle Jack” this weekend.
“The support from your community and his friends is overwhelming,” wrote niece Jacqueline Dormer of Pennsylvania. “It brings tears to my eyes.”
The Deacons say Stabinsky seldom gets emotional, but he broke down last week when they told him about the community’s response. When I talked to Stabinsky on Monday, his spirit was high.
“I thank everybody with all my heart and soul,” he said. “They made me the happiest man in the world.”
Now for the big question: How’d he get there?
Well, an “elite traveler” donated the travel miles for Jack and Becky Moore — admissions director at Life Care Center of Gwinnett — to fly Air Tran. Moore’s flight back to Atlanta was covered, too.
Another anonymous person paid for ambulance service from Logan Airport to the nursing home. Hours later, that same service ferried Moore back to the airport for the return trip.
“We were treated like royalty the minute we got on the plane,” Moore told me. “It was an experience I will never forget. It’s just a miracle, that’s all I can say.”
Me too.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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