Family meets recipient of heart from teen shot outside party in Las Vegas

Karen Brill put on a stethoscope and leaned close to hear her son Aric's heartbeat.

It reminded her of the times she and Aric would lie on the sofa and watch television together.

Only now Aric's heart was beating inside the chest of Louis, a 51-year-old man from Santa Cruz, Calif.

Louis received the heart Feb. 23, 2009, days after Aric, 16, was shot and killed outside a party in Las Vegas.

"You can breathe," Roxann Green, the nurse who cared for Aric's organs the night he was shot, told Karen.

"That's amazing, Louis," Karen whispered.

Moments later Green put on the stethoscope.

"The last time I listened to that heart was when it was in Aric," Green said to no one in particular.

"Me too," Karen replied.

The encounter between Louis and the Brill family was Friday morning in a conference room inside the offices of the Nevada Donor Network.

It was the family's first face-to-face meeting with Louis, one of several people who received organs from Aric.

"After the surgery, when I woke up it was so strong and so loud I could hear it," said Louis, who didn't want his last name disclosed because as a transplant recipient he has faced professional discrimination. "Before ... a lot of times when they took my blood pressure, it didn't even register."

Hearing Aric's heart inside Louis was another step forward for the Brill family, who still grieve the loss of their son and seek the man who shot him as he was running in the opposite direction.

"I am 100 percent sure that person is a coward," Karen Brill said of the shooter, who police believe is a gang member who crashed the party in order to commit a robbery. "I am 100 percent sure that person doesn't wake up in the morning thinking about what he can do for other people or his community."

Aric Brill was a straight-A student at Global Community High School and had no affiliations with gangs. He participated in the Future Business Leaders of America and was physically fit, his family said.

Police believe the Feb. 20, 2009, shooting outside a party was a random act of violence.

Witnesses at the time said Aric was returning to the party with some other kids when they were jumped by from behind by suspected gang members.

Police said the shooter pulled two guns and started shooting when Aric and another boy fled. The other boy was wounded but survived.

Karen Brill said there is a $17,500 reward for anyone who can help authorities make an arrest. Detectives on the case were unavailable for comment Friday.

The Brill family is hopeful someone who attended will eventually step forward and identify the culprit.

"I'm hoping somebody at that party has gotten a little older and grown a heart," Karen Brill said.

In the meantime the Brill family and Louis grieve Aric's death while being thankful his heart and other donated organs are helping people.

In addition to Karen Brill, Aric's brother, Kevin, 16, and father, Don Brill, were at the meeting with Louis.

So was Las Vegas police Officer Vernon Ferguson, who found Aric face down in the road, removed gravel from his mouth and administered CPR despite blood spurting from a wound.

Ferguson's actions were credited with keeping Aric breathing long enough for him to get to the hospital and become an organ donor.

"Being a part of something like this, no matter how small the part was, it is really special," Ferguson said.

Besides hearing the transplanted heart beat in Louis' chest, they listened to Louis describe his journey from successful businessman to heart transplant recipient.

A native of San Jose, Calif., Louis lived his entire life with a heart murmur.

It didn't stop him, however, from being an active swimmer, surfer, lifeguard and owner of several businesses, including a chain of steakhouses.

It wasn't until 12 years ago when he became gravely ill and had to have a small defibrillator implanted in his chest that his heart problem began to take a toll.

He recovered and resumed activity until about two years ago, when he got sick again and his organs started to fail.

Doctors at Stanford University Hospital attached a device to his heart to pump his blood so he could recover enough to undergo surgery.

After Aric died, Nevada Donor Network, the only federally designated organ procurement agency in Southern Nevada, facilitated the recovery and transfer of his heart, kidneys, lungs and other organs, tissue and bone to recipients like Louis.

Spokeswoman Alyson McCarthy said the donor network is focused on approaching families of people who suffer brain death but retain a working heart, a condition that occurs in just 1 percent of all deaths.

"If their heart stops beating, those organs will not be viable to donate," she said. "If the brain dies and the heart keeps pumping ... that is what give us our supply of eligible donors."

Since receiving the heart Louis' life has had ups and downs.

He said he didn't have insurance when got sick, so he had to sell everything he had to qualify for a state-sponsored transplant.

His fiancee also broke up with him after he got sick, leaving him alone and with none of the trappings of his previous lifestyle of sailing, surfing, swimming and traveling.

He also lost all of his business contacts, making it difficult to resume his career since the operation.

"Nobody wants to be hanging out with a gimpy person or knowing that they are not going to be around," Louis said. "You have your little moments of stuff where things don't go right."

There are also moments of elation.

Louis recalled the first time since the operation when he went surfing.

"One morning I just woke up and I just felt this incredible energy. I just popped out of bed, borrowed my neighbor's surfboard and went surfing," Louis said. "It took everything I had but I did it."

Louis described how he sometimes feels guilty knowing it took Aric's death to renew his life.

Don Brill interrupted.

"Don't feel guilty. Don't go that way," he said.

"I look at it sometimes like you are surfing for him," Karen Brill added.

Although the meeting was held at Nevada Donor Network offices, McCarthy said it was an anonymous donor who paid for Louis' ticket who made the encounter possible.

Nevada Donor Network officials and the Brill family said they opened the meeting to reporters to inspire more people to become organ donors and remind the public that Aric's killer remains at large.

"It is these personal stories that are going to inspire the rest of us who haven't experienced that kind of a loss to think about it," McCarthy said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.