DURHAM, N.C. — In a matter of hours, a Facebook post united a Virginia woman with the Duke nurse who tried to save her brother's life more than four years ago.
When Lydia Graham posted on Facebook, she knew her lengthy letter of gratitude may never reach the person for whom it was intended, but she had to try. The letter was directed to a woman who stopped on the road in 2014 after a crash and tried to save a man's life.
"In September 2014 you witnessed a gruesome accident," it began. It ended by saying, "I love you."
The man in the crash was Ian Graham, her brother, but all she knew about the woman was what police told her. She was an off-duty nurse who worked at Duke Hospital.
"She performed a procedure to open his airway," Graham said. "Got him to the side of the road, shielded him from traffic seemingly without any regard for her own safety."
Although her brother died, Graham thought often about that nurse over the past four years, but didn't think she could actually find her.
"It seemed like an impossible feat. I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know how old she was. I didn’t have any descriptive details of her," Graham said. She wrote the letter anyway and asked friends to share it on Facebook.
Her post said that the nurse did save lives that night.
"Your courage and your humanity and your selflessness actually saved many lives," the post read.
Because the nurse kept Ian alive until he got to the hospital, he could donate his organs.
"I want you to know that you saved the life of a 60-year-old man with a wife of 36 years, a daughter and two grandchildren. He received a kidney from Ian," it said. It also described others who received his organs, including a child who would've gone blind without his corneas, and a newborn who received a heart valve.
The nurse's actions also gave Graham and her mother a gift that brings them peace.
"Because of you, my brother didn't die alone on the side of a road, scared or in pain," Graham wrote. "Because of you, we got to say goodbye."
Her post was shared and shared again, and hours after Graham put that note on Facebook, she and the nurse exchanged messages.
"One of the first thing she told me was ... she could just tell being there with him he was a real teddy bear of a guy, and I think that that was the moment I was sure it was her," Graham recalled. She described her brother as friendly, loving, and gregarious.
She says she's thankful the post brought so much positive attention to nurses, as well as to organ donation. She said that, along with the nurse, she wants to thank Carolina Donor Services, which coordinated her brother's organ donations.
She said she and the nurse, who has not made her name public, have exchanged a number of messages and she hopes one day they could meet in person.
