Most of us at one point ask the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Human beings have puzzled over the very nature of existence as long as we’ve existed; philosophers make it their life work. Yet no single answer satisfies everyone.
David Osborn ’74 has been in an unusual position to reflect on this question through a tapestry of experiences. His own life was spared, and in turn, he saved another.
Four years ago, Osborn received a liver and kidney transplant necessitated by years of alcohol abuse and complications with diabetes. His condition worsened to the point where he was number two on the national waiting list for a liver and kidney. Told that his life was in immediate danger and still waiting for a transplant, doctors placed Osborn in a medically induced coma.
On April 3, 2003, a woman died in an airplane crash near Keene, New Hampshire, and in the process saved Osborn’s life. He remained unconscious for 11 days. Before he came out of the coma, Osborn says he had an out-of-body experience. He remembers seeing brilliant spectrums of light and objects flying past him in beautiful colors. “I felt peace,” says Osborn.
But Osborn lived. He felt depressed and had a psychiatrist by his side. “I didn’t want to come back, I was happy where I was,” says Osborn. “I joke that God and I were up at the gate of heaven drinking a glass of wine, and he said to me, ‘You’ve got to go back, you’ve got to go back, I have another plan for you.’”
Three years later, on Memorial Day weekend, Osborn and his daughter, Cara, were driving southbound on Interstate 93 near Bow, New Hampshire. Suddenly Cara noticed a billow of smoke around the bend in the road. As they reached the site of the smoke, they saw a wrecked SUV in a wooded gully. A few people had already stopped to help.
The 54-year-old retired guidance counselor didn’t hesitate for a moment. “As a guidance counselor trained in evacuation drills, I was in a position of being an administrator,” says Osborn. Assessing the situation, Osborn noticed that a boy who had just been pulled from the wreck was standing too close to the car. It was starting to catch fire. “I grabbed the boy . . . he was all bloody . . . and put him on my shoulder and started running,” Osborn recalls. “And then the car blew up.” The heat from the explosion singed Osborn’s shirt and the hair on his back. Along with the young boy who had gashes on his head and arm, Osborn needed medical attention from burns and his dropping insulin levels. The boy’s sister survived, but his parents died in the accident.
Reflecting on the incident, Osborn says that those few seconds felt like a lifetime. With the kind of adrenaline surge he experienced, Osborn believes anyone would have stopped in that situation. Osborn says that his response was spontaneous, that he just acted out of human nature.
Others thought what he did was exceptional. In recognition of his bravery, the Milford, New Hampshire, resident was given the Good Samaritan Hero award from the Greater Nashua and Souhegan Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross on the four-year anniversary of his transplant. Over the course of these incredible events, Osborn has become a full-fledged advocate for organ donation. He wears a green plastic wristband to show his support for the cause. He challenges everybody who is not an organ donor to consider becoming one.
Being deemed a hero by the public and organizations such as the American Red Cross doesn’t fit with Osborn’s sense of himself.
Yet he admits there’s something special about the way his life has unfurled the past four years. “Now I know why God said to me, ‘You don’t belong here yet.’” By virtue of his saved life, Osborn was given the opportunity to save another—that of a seven-year-old autistic boy.
Despite the accolades, Osborn still maintains heroism is in the grasp of everyone: “If you donate blood, you’re a hero.”
