It’s hard to say the new heart afforded to Anthony Tremayne Stokes was wasted. It gave a troubled kid a second chance.
Many thought the new heart, a scarce resource transplanted into the 15-year-old in 2013 after an uncomfortable controversy, was an act of providence, a gift from a recently departed that would turn a life around.
Obviously not. Last week, the young man died a criminal, fleeing police in a car-jacked vehicle, suspected of shooting at an old woman after breaking into her home. His car, before disintegrating into a million pieces, also struck a pedestrian, who is hospitalized.
Five months ago, Stokes threatened a middle-age woman after stealing her car. He aimed a pretend gun at her and said he was coming back to get her. And that was when he was under arrest, with a couple of astonished cops looking on. That changed her life. “I now live in fear,” she said.
That’s what the new heart allowed him to do before it stopped beating for a second time.
Stokes’ case got wide publicity in August 2013, when medical officials declined to put him on a transplant waiting list, citing “a history of non-compliance.”
“They said they don’t have any evidence that he would take his medicine or that he would go to his follow-ups,” his mother, Melencia Hamilton, said at the time.
And, she said, there was another reason: race.
Almost immediately, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference took up the cause, with the Georgia chapter president, the Rev. Samuel Mosteller, dropping the neutron bomb of Atlanta politics: “They said he was being denied because, based on demographics, age and race, it was more than likely he would not comply.”
By that reasoning, he added, “black male teens are never going to meet any of the criteria, simply because they are young and black.”
Kaboom!
The same day that statement appeared in the AJC, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta reversed course and put Stokes on the list. Who wants to be called racist?
The next week, the teen had a new heart.
The national registry has strict guidelines for those receiving transplants, and statistics do not indicate an inherent racism in the system.
I contacted the United Network for Organ Sharing to see ethnic and racial breakdowns. Currently there are about 4,100 people on the list; 24 percent of them are black. (The census says 13 percent of Americans are black. I know the transplant list is way different than the general population, but am just giving a point of reference here.)
Last year 2,655 people got heart transplants in the U.S.; 21 percent of them were black patients.
Last year, 377 people died awaiting a heart; 23 percent of them were black.
None of this seemed to enter the equation during the short, intense public discussion on the subject.
But, I suppose, you can’t fault a family for trying. If cries of racism work – and the medical system can be bullied into it – then why not? It’s a time-tested tool. It worked.
The affair brings with it many questions: Who got jumped in the list? Who would have gotten that heart? Would the other recipient have treated the opportunity with more reverence than did Stokes and his family?
All questions that will likely remain unanswered.
But the family had displayed a lack of follow-through, responsibility and even gratitude.
(For the record, the family isn’t talking.)
Mack Major, who runs a youth mentoring organization in Decatur, fielded a call for help from Stokes’ mother more than a year before the transplant controversy. The single mother couldn’t control her three teen-aged sons. But then he heard nothing again from her until Stokes’ health tanked in 2013.
Major called in some civil rights leaders to make the issue public. “I turned to the media because the media can sometimes be your friend,” he said. “I challenged (medical officials) on race. I felt this was a real issue.”
The mother told him her son’s ankle monitor was because of a school fight. “That didn’t tally up to me,” Major said. “But even so, I had to help. It’s a kid.”
Major was correct in thinking mom was not giving it all up. It turns out the 15-year-old heart patient had been involved with two gun incidents, a break-in and a suspected arson.
Major works with lost causes all the time and often flips bad situations around. He puts up silhouettes of young men on his office wall each time he hears a news story of a young black man killing another young black man. Last year he put up 30. So far this year, it’s 13. He calls it The Wall of Disgrace.
Major said Stokes had no male figure in his day-to-day life, a commonality of most young men he counsels. Shortly after the transplant, he said, “The dad came, took the mother aside, and said he didn’t want another man mentoring his son.”
In November, 2013, the mom called Major to say his help was no longer welcome. “She said her family will take care of it.”
He said that by the time Stokes died, the civil rights leaders who helped publicize the transplant issue were no longer in the teen’s life, either. He believes they, too, were run off by the family.
Pamela Wiggins has no sympathy for those who lobbied to get Stokes a new heart. She’s the woman he threatened while he was under arrest for stealing her truck. “If you’re not going to do things to put him on the right track, then why step forward?” she asked.
Wiggins was on hand when Stokes appeared in court on the truck-theft charges. “His mom told the judge he shouldn’t be in jail because he had to take medication for his heart,” Wiggins said. “That’s when I remembered the story about the transplant.”
Then, Wiggins said, “The judge said to him, ‘If you’re walking down the street and see (Ms. Wiggins), cross over.’ I’m like ‘Is that it?!’”
On Jan. 10, (which is around the same time of the court hearing) Stokes was caught red-handed in a Walmart parking lot trying to steal a pickup. And then, of course, came his quasi-suicidal recent crime spree.
Wiggins is astounded he got so many chances. “No one wanted to rock the boat when it came to Anthony Stokes. They handled him with kid gloves.”
One of Stokes’ biggest cheerleaders back in 2013 was Tammy Madden, whose daughter, Megan, got a new heart as a baby.
“He was a kid, and he was so believable when you saw him,” Madden told my colleague Ernie Suggs. “I was one of the ones who said, ‘Give him a second chance.’ We fell into that trap.”
Megan Madden is 13 now, and her mother said she has never missed a medical appointment.
“I have fought so hard and make sure my daughter gets every piece of medicine she needs,” Madden said. “This was such a precious gift, and it sickens me that he took that gift and threw it away.
“It is disgusting, and while I hate it that he is gone, I am not sure that I would agree to give a heart to someone if they are not compliant. I don’t think they deserve it.”
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