Davey Allison's incredible legacy lives on 20 years after his death
Sports Illustrated | Matt Crossman
Photo: Davey Allison celebrates with his wife, Liz, and two small children after winning the 1992 Daytona 500.
GeorgeTiedemann/SIOne night at a restaurant a few years ago, Liz Allison ran into the ex-boyfriend of a friend of hers, a man she had met before. His name was Dr. Seenu Reddy, and that night, for the first time, he told her an unbelievable story about how their lives had once intersected.
Reddy had been a medical student at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and was at the hospital the day Liz's husband, NASCAR star Davey Allison, died 20 years ago this week. As part of his medical school work, Reddy watched that day as a surgeon cut open a patient's chest and took out his heart. Reddy looked on in amazement as a machine pumped blood through the man's body to keep him alive. The surgeon took another heart off of ice and filled the man's chest with it.
That was Davey Allison's heart. His incredible legacy began when it started to beat again.
*****
A knock on the door. A rush to the hospital. A long night pacing the halls. Crushing news. Liz Allison, just 28 years old and the mother of two young children, was going to become a widow. Her husband was going to die from the injuries he sustained in a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway.
"They came in, a big group of doctors. They wanted to meet with all the family because there were so many people there," Liz Allison says in the first interview she has ever given about her husband's organ donations. "He basically said, 'Davey is dead, and would you like to donate his organs?' It was truly that cut and dry. I remember, all I could hear was the first thing he said. We all did what most do, which is drop to your knees and fall apart. He said, 'I know this is a very difficult time for you, but we have to know. It has to happen that fast."'
GeorgeTiedemann/SIOne night at a restaurant a few years ago, Liz Allison ran into the ex-boyfriend of a friend of hers, a man she had met before. His name was Dr. Seenu Reddy, and that night, for the first time, he told her an unbelievable story about how their lives had once intersected.
Reddy had been a medical student at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and was at the hospital the day Liz's husband, NASCAR star Davey Allison, died 20 years ago this week. As part of his medical school work, Reddy watched that day as a surgeon cut open a patient's chest and took out his heart. Reddy looked on in amazement as a machine pumped blood through the man's body to keep him alive. The surgeon took another heart off of ice and filled the man's chest with it.
That was Davey Allison's heart. His incredible legacy began when it started to beat again.
*****
A knock on the door. A rush to the hospital. A long night pacing the halls. Crushing news. Liz Allison, just 28 years old and the mother of two young children, was going to become a widow. Her husband was going to die from the injuries he sustained in a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway.
"They came in, a big group of doctors. They wanted to meet with all the family because there were so many people there," Liz Allison says in the first interview she has ever given about her husband's organ donations. "He basically said, 'Davey is dead, and would you like to donate his organs?' It was truly that cut and dry. I remember, all I could hear was the first thing he said. We all did what most do, which is drop to your knees and fall apart. He said, 'I know this is a very difficult time for you, but we have to know. It has to happen that fast."'
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