13 year old Oisin McGrath
Oisin McGrath’s organs are to ‘give life to another’, parish priest Fr Seamus Quinn has said.
The 13-year-old died following an incident at St Michael’s College on Monday (February 10).
Oisin’s mother, Sharon, told the priest before a special mass in Belcoo yesterday evening (Wednesday), that doctors explained to her there were ‘no signs of life’, following a test on her son’s brain stem – Fr Quinn told Q Radio.
Sharon told Fr Quinn that the family have decided to ‘donate Oisin’s organs to somebody else, in the hope that he will give life, that his passing will give life to others’.
He said that before a community mass Holywell Church, Belcoo last night (Wednesday), Sharon had told him that doctors had indicated that there were ‘no signs of life’.
Fr Quinn said: “I was talking to Sharon, that’s Oisin’s mother, at about 8.15am this morning (Thursday) and Sharon was telling me that she had spent the night with Oisin in the little side room and probably I’m sure maybe his father as well and other members of the family for all I know.”
He went on: “She told me that Oisin is still on life support, he’s still on a ventilator and that that’s the way it is at the moment. They have decided to donate Oisin’s organs to somebody else in the hope that he will give life, that his passing will give life to others – which I think again really hits in the gut – when you hear that a 13-year-old boy… I mean, wonderful, wonderful for somebody else yes – but really really tragic, devastating for our family, for the McGrath family.”
He said that Oisin’s mother told him prior to a special mass in Belcoo yesterday evening (Wednesday) that doctors had said there ‘were no signs of life’.
“I had been talking to Sharon on the phone just 20 minutes before mass so I knew exactly what she wanted to convey to the people and I wrote it down and conveyed it exactly, which was basically that the doctors had done a test on Oisin’s brain stem and that there were no signs of life and that they would be gradually removing the support mechanisms through the night and the following day…”
Fr Quinn told listeners that there were large crowds gathered at two masses held in the locality.
“We moved to a much bigger church last night (Wednesday) to have a mass and there must have been at least 500 there at a guess… and I’m being conservative about that.”
“The atmosphere… this was the first that the people had heard and the atmosphere was terrible.
“There were a lot of sad eyes, a lot of crying. It was a terrible situation, terrible really. In a way probably it was healthy I suppose if there’s such a thing – that everybody who was concerned enough to come out to that mass, got to hear the awful news together as a community rather than in all kinds of separate ways.
“There was that to it I suppose and we tried to process that by naming prayers and naming issues and that sort of thing. Praying and leaving the whole thing in God’s hands which is all any of us can do.”
The family are grateful for the support that they have received.
“She was also very grateful for, and still is very grateful, for the amount of support she has got from all over the place, all the prayers and the calls and everything like that and she wanted to thank everybody for that.
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