Health: Blood Drive To Be Held In Honor Of 2 Teens Who's Lives Were Cut Short By Drunk Driver
By Stephanie Stahl
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Turning tragedy and loss into hopeful giving. That's what's behind an upcoming blood drive in honor of two teenagers whose lives were cut short.
Love life, give life, it's the theme of an upcoming blood drive in Collingdale in memory of Mark and Mike. "They were great kids, we're very proud of them, everybody loved them. So we want to do something to celebrate that," says Eileen Taylor. Her son Michael Taylor and Mark McNeill were 15-year-old best friends, the kind who finished each other's sentences. Teenagers loving and living life together every day until a December evening in 2011. While walking home, they were run over by a drunk driver who was fleeing police. The guy who killed them is serving a life sentence. Eileen says, "I don't think they would have survived without each other."
Eileen's Mike was killed instantly. Missy says her son Mark was kept alive for 18 hours before he joined his best friend again on a final journey. "For him to have Michael to walk to and for Michael to not walk through that tunnel by himself, they could walk together," Missy says.
They have special blankets of the boys and all sorts of mementos: Mark's first suit and his hockey equipment. For Eileen, it's Mike's favorite hat and his beloved Legos. Eileen says, "I put one of the boxes in his casket so he's got Legos to play with in heaven."
The moms decided to remember and honor their sons on their birthdays with a blood drive twice a year. Missy says blood transfusions gave her those precious last hours with her son. "It's because of donors. That's how we got to sit and say goodbye and tell him it was ok and Michael was waiting." Missy explains.
It's not about the way they died, the moms want to remember. It's about the way they lived: now giving life with the "Mark and Mike drive to give life". "We always hope that at least one life is saved and that nobody has to go through the pain that we go through," says Eileen.
The blood drive for Mark and Mike is Friday, March 6 at the Collingdale Fire Company 510 Clifton Ave. Collingdale, Pa. 19023 from 1pm to 7pm.
Missy McNeill 610-809-5187 or www.redcrossblood.org, enter sponsor code: Michael and Mark