Garry Phebus had Lou Gehrig's disease and he wanted his life to mean something for others with ALS.
Phebus had said last summer he wanted to donate his organs -- heart, lungs, liver -- while he was alive. He wanted to avoid the pain that would foreshadow his death and also give researchers something to study.
Despite his wish to donate while still alive, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis took him last week.
The Cherokee County man was 62.
“He just hoped they’d find a cure for it so people would not have to die from it,” his widow, Patti Phebus, said about her husband's reason for donating critical organs while still alive.
At first she hated his idea but soon appreciated his reasons.
“It was something that he really wanted to do,” Phebus told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday. “He couldn’t understand why it couldn’t happen. Our feeling was anybody who decides to run into a burning building and tries to get people out or someone jumps in front of a train to pull the toddler out of harm’s way, nobody thinks they committed suicide. They are a hero.”
This was no different, she said.
His body is now with the Anatomy Gift Registry in Glen Burnie, Md., the city where Patti and Garry met and dated. The family has not been told which research facility will eventually get his body.
Garry Phebus made all the arrangements long before his death on March 25.
ALS affects the nervous system, and eventually most ALS patient cannot speak, swallow or breath. Phebus said her husband, diagnosed in 2008, could walk short distances until five days before his death. He also could eat until a week before his death.
In an interview last summer, Patti Phebus said people initially shuddered at the idea of organ donation while still alive but they seemed to understand once they pointed out scripture they believed supported their decision; John 15:13 reads, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Garry Phebus, who lived in tiny town of White in eastern Cherokee County, convinced his four adult children his decision was right, but no doctors were willing to help him.
“I already have a death sentence, so what’s the difference?” Garry Phebus said in July. “I had doctors and nurses telling me it’s unethical. But I don’t have a life to live.”
Assisted suicide is allowed in three states, but in Georgia it is illegal.
A memorial service is scheduled for noon Sunday at Wesleyan Church in Cartersville.
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