Monday, October 05, 2009

Goodbye, Doran

My oldest brother, Doran, passed away on September 26th in Denver, Colorado.

He logged more than 65,000 miles bike riding, 22,000 of those were climbing mountains. He biked up Pike's Peak several times, border to border across Ohio and Kansas. He biked the Rocky Mountains in Montana. He biked up Sandia Peak in Albuquerque.

On June 15th he was out for an early morning bike ride before work in Denver, Colorado. At about 5:30 a.m. he was almost all the way across an intersection when a pickup truck broadsided him, throwing him almost 100 feet. He was conscious when paramedics attended to him, giving them the phone number of his wife so they could contact her. But on the way to the hospital his internal injuries bled out so much his brain was oxygen starved and he never regained consciousness.

After 3 months of hoping and praying for a miraculous recovery, his wife and we all knew that this was the best he was going to recover, so the decision was made to pull the plug. He died just four days later, on September 26th.

His funeral was last week in Denver. We estimate that over 500 people attended it. He was a very loved and respected church and community leader where he lived!

He was a steady, shining example of plain old goodness, humor, generosity, love, and support. He will be sorely missed.

Ryan

1 comment:

Alex said...

Ryan - what a tragedy. My thoughts are with your family.

Alex