COLUMBIANA COUNTY Organ donations from teen give life to others

Amanda Radman loved to sing and wanted to be a YSU cheerleader.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA -- There's a life celebration planned today as friends and family gather on what would have been Amanda Radman's 17th birthday.
Amanda died May 8 in a car crash, and as a result, six families are celebrating new life for their loved ones.
A letter from LifeBanc to Amanda's family in June told them about the people helped through her death:
UA 48-year-old mother of two received Amanda's heart. She is recovering well and looking forward to traveling with her family.
UAmanda's lungs went to a 41-year-old woman who enjoys reading and playing cards, and to a 44-year-old woman who is active in her church. Both are doing well and expected to make a full recovery.
UA 14-year-old girl is recovering from surgery and looking forward to going back to school after receiving Amanda's liver.
UAmanda's kidneys went to a 38-year-old man who is hoping to return to work soon, and to a 17-year-old girl who is a senior in high school and plans to attend culinary school after graduation. She has not needed dialysis treatment since the transplant.
UThe LifeBanc tissue recovery team recovered bone tissue that will be transplanted into patients who require corrective surgery for injuries or long-bone tumors. In many cases, the tissue transplant will prevent amputation of a limb, LifeBanc officials said.
Family's concerns
"Amanda was a very caring, giving person, and I think she would look at those people she helped and say that's the best decision to make," said her father, Jay Radman.
He hopes that through her example, people will decide to be organ donors, and that her death will spur parents and teen-agers to talk seriously about the enormous responsibility of getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
Although just 16, Amanda was a responsible driver who always wore her seat belt, and always scolded him and other family members and friends who didn't buckle up, he said.
The day she died, she was on her way to pick up a friend to go to her older brother Jamiel's boxing match. She drove through a stop sign and her car was struck in the intersection.
"It was her fault," her father said. "She was always careful, but on that day, she was distracted. She loved her brothers and she was probably excited about the boxing match."
The support from family, friends and the community since her death has been overwhelming, Radman said.
He is the maintenance supervisor for Crestview schools, where Amanda was a cheerleader. Her friends and the cheerleader adviser had a tree planted at the school in her memory.
He is still opening sympathy cards, not just from the community, but from out of state.
"It is a very sad, very painful thing to grieve this way, but you have to focus on the good things," he said. "Amanda loved to sing. She sang in church, and she'd sing the national anthem at school events. She had the voice of an angel."
'With her mother now'
He has dealt with tragic death before. Amanda's mother was killed when Amanda was 5. He has since remarried and had another son, John, 7.
Amanda's other brothers are Jamiel, 19, James, 18, and Samire, 13.
"I know that Amanda is with her mother now," Jay Radman said. "They are in a better place. Our faith -- our church -- has helped us. People who don't believe in that better place, who don't think there's anything after this, I don't know how they deal with something like this."
Amanda loved cheerleading and aimed to become a cheerleader for Youngstown State University.
"I asked her what she would do at YSU, and she just said cheerleading," her father said, adding, "Nothing else mattered. "
She was always surrounded by her friends and was always singing, he said. She might have become a cosmetologist, he said, noting, "She was always doing people's hair and their nails. She loved that."
What he misses most, he said, is her presence in the house: "When Amanda was home, you knew it. She would just be all over the house. She'd have the stereo on and the television on and she was always on the phone, walking through the house, talking and laughing and singing.
"It's too quiet here now," he said. "I have to walk past her bedroom all the time. I used to look in on her at night, and now I can't do that.
"But I can still hear her singing, and I can remember her smile, and her laughter, the way she lit up a room. She was my sunshine."