FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A 5-year-old girl’s parents are sharing their daughter’s legacy after they lost her to a freak accident in their Fort Collins backyard.
Krystal and Tom Masters said their daughter Aurora loved to live in the moment and play in the backyard on her disc swing. On May 8, “she gave me a kiss and hug and then she went outside,” Krystal said. “This was situation normal. This was life. She just played.”
No more than 15 minutes later, she said, the neighbors rang the doorbell, saying something was wrong.
“I saw her in the tree with the swing wrapped around her neck,” Krystal said.
“I was begging, please, please don't. This is a good kid. Don’t do it,” Tom said.
“Her magnetic personality and luminous character, seriously it was just bright, brilliant, smiling,” he said.
“She would wave and smile at other people in traffic to get them to smile, and then she would be like ‘Daddy, they smiled,’” Krystal said.
Her parents wished they'd get to see that smile, or embrace that hug, one more time.
“We could give that wish that I was making to somebody else. Like, we could grant that,” Tom said.
Her parents donated her organs to help save lives.
“I am proud of my daughter,” Krystal said. “I was already proud, but she's still giving, and that helps me a little bit.”
Aurora's organs went to Donor Alliance, a group helping with organ and tissue transplants.
“Currently, there are 1,300 people in Colorado and Wyoming waiting for a life-saving organ transplant and tens of thousands of more people are in need of a tissue transplant,” Donor Alliance spokesperson Heather Burke said. “One person can save up to eight lives with organ donation, and up to 75 lives with tissue donation.”
The greatest gift Aurora is giving now is the gift of life.
“We know that Aurora's heart is beating somewhere,” Krystal said.
Services for Aurora will be held June 8.
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