15-year-old volleyball player’s legacy honored at Myrtle Beach Pelicans game
MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – In honor of a Horry County teen, her father’s longtime friend and organ recipient, threw the first pitch at Wednesday’s Myrtle Beach Pelicans game during the ‘We Are Sharing Hope SC’ celebration for organ donation.
John Yannessa and Dave Holland have been friends for about two decades after their jobs at Coastal Carolina University first brought them together, but now their bond is closer than ever thanks to a life-saving liver donation from Dave’s 15-year-old daughter, Ava.
“They got the information that John was in the system, and they waited for the time that Ava was ready for the donation process, and they came back to me and said she was a perfect match,” Holland said.
Ava Holland, a sophomore volleyball standout at Atlantic Collegiate Academy, was ruled brain dead earlier this year following a crash off Highway 90 in Horry County.
After spending weeks in the hospital, Ava died on Feb. 19.
That same day, John got the call he had been waiting for over a year.
“I think we were both without words for a while on the phone,” Holland said.
Celebration at Pelicans game
As John threw the first pitch, both families gathered on the field as loved ones, hospital staff, and some of Ava’s teammates supported from the stands.
Ava’s organ transfer now allows John to live a healthier lifestyle after years of his liver declining.
He said people waiting on the transplant list often feel a sense of guilt for accepting an organ they need to survive.
“We know that the blessing to come, on the other side, has been a tremendous loss, tragedy, something a family is going through that’s impossible to understand,” Yannessa said.
It has been about 60 days since the liver transfer, and both families remain healing.
John and Ava never got to meet before she passed, but David said his daughter now gets to stay alive through his longtime friend.
“It’s amazing that I have some part of her close in the process that was close to us; she was always someone who helped and cared, and this is just the next stage of what she would have done and what she would have wanted, and we’re thankful,” Dave Holland said.
Ava was also able to give her heart, a lung, and both kidneys to other people in need, making a total of four lives saved thanks to her checking the organ donor box on her driver’s license.
Both families said they hope their story inspires others to do the same.
For more information on Ava, click here.
For more information on becoming an SC organ donor, click here.
See the full story at wmbfnews.com.