Connected by fate: Armuchee couple meets Rome woman who was recipient of their son’s heart

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Sara Spann put her hand on Yolanda Akins’ shoulder Friday as the two women’s families fell silent.

Akins held the end of a stethoscope to her chest. Spann listened and for the first time in over a year, she heard her son’s heart beat.

“I didn’t know how I would act coming here today,” Spann said. “There are just so many emotions. But I wanted to come. I wanted to put my arms around Yolanda.

“She got the biggest part of him. She got his big heart.”

Sara and Gary Spann lost their 23-year-old son Geoffrey Spann after he was struck by a car while walking the family dog on Old Summerville Road in November 2012.

Years earlier, he had decided to be an organ donor. When he died at Floyd Medical Center the day after the incident, his heart was harvested.

Two days later, Akins, a Rome native, was in surgery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta for a heart transplant to replace her heart, which had a collapsed muscle.

It wasn’t until this past January that the hospitals and LifeLink of Georgia guided the two parties to discover that Geoffrey Spann’s heart wasn’t too far from home.

“We were so blessed to have had a child who thought so much about other people and what happens after we’re gone,” Sara Spann said.

“This is Geoffrey’s day to shine.”

It was by chance that the Spanns made the connection that Akins had received their son’s heart.

LifeLink and hospitals keep donor-recipient records confidential, even to each other’s families. Spann knew that a woman from Rome had received Geoffrey’s heart. That was all.

When an article about Akins preparing to represent Rome in the Transplant Games in Texas appeared in the Roman Life section of the Rome News-Tribune last summer, Geoffrey’s sister, Merecia Thomas, saw it when she was visiting a friend in Rome.

A call to an editor at the newspaper began Spann’s journey to find Akins and finally meet this week.

“Ever since last summer, I’ve been on the edge each day waiting to meet Mrs. Spann,” Akins said. “A lot of people don’t understand the need for donors. And I can’t say ‘thank you’ enough for what her son did for me.”

Akins has remained in good health since the transplant and now has 13 grandchildren, as well as two step-grandchildren, all of which Spann said they plan to get to know.

Spann said she wrote an anonymous four-page letter to Akins before it was confirmed that Akins had been the recipient of her son’s heart, and it was delivered to her through LifeLink,

“I told her about who Geoffrey was and what his plans were, without naming him of course,” Spann said.

“And I told her we would forever be linked by a common heart.”

Source: Rome News

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