DETROIT – When 19-year-old Emily Stillman died of bacterial meningitis, no one could have predicted the influence it would have. Her death immediately gave five others the gift of life, and will save others in the future, thanks to her family's fight for a vaccine against the disease that took their daughter.
Emily was a sophomore at Kalamazoo College when she died suddenly in February 2013 from the infection. Meningitis surrounds a person's spinal cord and the brain.
"When they told me she had meningitis, I thought it wasn't possible. I told them to please double-check the results," said Emily's mother, Alicia. "I sent my kids off to college, all my kids, with what I thought was full protection. I sent them with every vaccination that I was aware of."
In the final moments she had with her daughter, the grieving mother said she realized that she had the opportunity to carry on with purpose. She said she told her daughter, "I will be your voice and I will make sure this does not happen to other people."
The family began a mission to vaccinate others against meningitis-B, the strain that killed Emily, which is not part of the standard vaccine in the United States.
Thanks in part to the family's efforts, the Food and Drug Administration approved a meningitis-B vaccine in October.
But Emily's story doesn't end there.
Initially, her family didn't want to even discuss donating her organs.
"All of sudden, I got a shiver on the back of my neck. Now when I get that shiver, I know it's Emily because that's how she comes to me. But I didn't know then. I had no idea. I just knew we made a terrible mistake," Alicia Stillman said.
The family looked to their rabbi, Michael Moskowitz, for guidance and he reminded them of a central philosophical principal.
"If you save one life, it's as if you have saved the world," Moskowitz said.
Emily's heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys were given to five patients.
"I don't think we could see at that time the impact that Emily would have on so many lives, and by extension, so many other lives and how much it gave them something to lift them back up," Moskowitz said.
The family declined to donate Emily's corneas.
"It was the one thing that I look and I think about her beautiful eyes that I looked into and I wasn't able to do it. We weren't able to do it," said Emily's father, Michael Stillman.
The family said they have relationships with people who received Emily's organs. The fifth has just come forward. Emily's heart went to a Cleveland doctor in his 30s with two young sons. Since receiving the transplant, the recipient has welcomed a third son.
"He lets me lay his head on his chest and I feel Emily inside him and I hear her heart beating like when I used to cuddle her," Alicia Stillman said.
The family has started the Emily Stillman Foundation, which raises awareness both for meningitis and organ donation.
The Stillmans are taking part in a very special event this Friday, Donor Shabbat, an event celebrating organ donation. All the recipients of Emily's organs will be present. You find all of the details for the event by clicking here.