LIVE OAK, Fl. (WTXL) - "The neurologist came in and said mom, we're done. There's nothing else I can do."
Tracie Brim Perbtani remembers every moment of April 19th, 2012 - the day that changed her life forever.
Perbtani's daughter Raivyn was injured in an ATV accident on a Thursday. Three days later, she was declared brain dead.
"I said okay, then you need to call for organs," she said when the doctors delivered the news. "Raivyn went to the OR, I believe it was 5:30, 6:00 in the morning on the 23rd, and gave her final gifts to this world."
Raivyn Summerfield saved four people with her organs. She was also a tissue and eye donor.
"She liked dance, she was always that smiling, happy go lucky kid," smiled Perbtani. "If she couldn't make you feel better by smiling, she had some kind of wise words beyond her years."
Now, Summerfield's heart, beats through Annemarie, who was 18 when she received the Summerfield's gift of life.
"She's my heart daughter!" exclaimed Perbtani. "She was a stranger six years ago today. Raivyn's story didn't stop. It started a new chapter, but with that, that chapter intertwined with complete strangers."
"One donor can save eight lives, tissue donor can help more than 75," said Coral Denton, who works with LifeQuest Organ Recovery Services. "Age is not a factor. The oldest cornea donor was 107, the oldest organ donor was 9 days shy of his 93rd birthday. So people are not too old!"
In Summerfield's case, you're never too young to make an impact, forever leaving her mark on Suwannee County.
"I think it took our small community that had not been impacted in those ways," said Perbtani. "It took a child of 14 years old that changed a lot."
Summerfield's story has opened the conversation on organ donation, and for the second year, the Suwannee County Tax Collector's office is holding a 5k to benefit Donate Life Florida and Summerfield is in the hearts of everyone.
"It gives you a purpose," said Andrew David Poole of the Suwannee Tax Collector's Office. "It's something that comes from the heart and it gives us an opportunity to give back to the community. Everybody comes together in a time of need and it just gives us the opportunity to hopefully help with Donate Life to educate people so they can become aware when they're asked the question to be an organ donor."
"It helps with the staff of the tax collector's office and the driver's license examiners have more meaning behind the question would you like to register as an organ donor," added Denton. "They actually know of a story or know of a person that's been impacted."
"There's a quote, and I can't think of who said it at this point and it may be an unknown quote, but it said, "you've never truly lived life until you do something for somebody that they can never repay," said Perbtani. "What more does that encompass than organ, tissue, and eye donation?"
In its inaugural race last year, the 5k had 46 participants and raised $4,000.
This year, the 5k had 76 participants and raised $5,500.
For more information on how to register, click here.
