MILWAUKEE — Two batteries and a controller are key items that helped keep one retired Milwaukee County deputy alive.
It took three years and six months but Keith Thrower’s life will forever be changed.
Thrower wanted to work in law enforcement since he was a child. And since his dreams came true decades ago, he has seen it all.
“Cops, you see the worst of the worst. You see everything,” Thrower said. “You see a child murdered, you're the first cop on the scene.”
Those are the kind of stories he will never forget.
“How do you transition from seeing that -- a little 12-year-old shot and killed -- to going home and now you have to turn that off?”
Between working patrol, jail and narcotics, the former deputy has personal stories of his own.
One day, shortly after celebrating his retirement, he was hit by a drunk driver while on his motorcycle.
“Boom. He hits me, launches me. I rolled out into traffic. There was a car right in front of me. I got three cracked ribs; I had a break in my left leg.”
This incident is just a fraction of heath scares he has lived to tell.
“When you think you're about to die and you're like OK, I got to do what I got to do.”
While still a deputy, and while on duty, Thrower noticed a change in his body. He had just issued a citation and was walking back to his patrol car when he felt himself having a heart attack.
Knowing seconds matter and assuming he would make it to the emergency room before responders did, he drove himself to the E.R.
“Wake up three days later and had triple bypass,” Thrower said.
Keith had congestive heart failure and months later, while on vacation, he contracted legionnaires disease which is a serious form of pneumonia.
It was then when he learned he needed a heart transplant. His health news was a domino effect as bad news kept creeping in. While Thrower waited on a transplant, he had to learn how to use a heart pump.
The pump forced him to limit his travel as he could only be within a two-hour distance from Froedtert Hospital.
One day, Thrower finally got his breakthrough phone call.
"I was like a chicken with no head, I'm running around grabbing my bag, I always had a bag sitting by the door for three years."
The rest of his story involves a family five hours south in Indiana.
The Patterson’s and their late son Nick.
Nick passed away following his addiction to drugs. His parents say he wanted to quit and get help in his addiction but like many addicts, he couldn’t fight it.
They describe their son as funny, kindhearted, a sports lover and one who could spend most of his time outside.
Not only have Mr. and Mrs. Patterson lost one child, but they also lost two to addiction, leaving them heartbroken with one son left.
“I’ve had two now. My older son passed away and Nick passed away. It was three and a half years after my first child that he passed away,” Debbie said as she began to get emotional.
Debbie and Dan had been waiting for two years during the height of the pandemic to meet Thrower. Thrower received Nick's heart. Once he received the green light, he decided to call the couple. He said he waited about a week to make the call because he was nervous. But the day he did, he sat at his table and cried during their first connection.
"It was amazing. We were nervous too," Debbie said.
For years, Thrower kept a bag packed by his front door with items he knew he would need if he ever received the call saying he had a match for a new heart.
That day when he finally got that life-saving and changing news, he said all he could do was break down and cry.
"I cherish life a little more now without a doubt," Thrower said.
He and his wife as well as Mr. and Mrs. Patterson met through Indiana Donor Network, an organization that provides a way to save lives through organ and tissue donations.
Thrower brought the family a gift. He had the cardiologist record Nick's heartbeat (from his chest) and use it as a recording that he then put inside of a teddy bear.
“When you give life, you just want to meet the person, you want to hear the heart in them, you want to see how they're doing,” Debbie said.
Nick not only saved Thrower but two others by donating his kidneys.
"If you could put it into words, how would you say the Pattersons saved your life?” TMJ4 reporter Symone Woolridge asked.
“I get to see my daughter graduate high school, my son will be graduating college soon, I got to see my family because when I had that heart pump I had to stay two hours’ drive from Froedtert Hospital,” Thrower answered as his voice cracked.
It was very emotional for the two families that now cherish life differently after this experience.
“A lot of times addicts don't feel self-worth or feel like they have a place and so this,” Debbie said. "To me, giving the gift of life, gave him back some of that.”
Thrower has been able to do the normal tasks he would normally do following his retirement. He can now mow the lawn, take walks around his neighborhood and experience the things he was unable to do while waiting for a heart transplant.
Thrower has a photo of Nick hanging up on his home wall, reminding him why and how he is here to share his story. Debbie gave him that photo.
“When people come in, I want them to say, who is that white dude you got hanging on the wall?” Thrower said. “And it's funny because a friend of mine came over. He said Keith, who is the white guy? I said oh, that's Nick. I said if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here.”
Through his lived experience, Thrower knows there is a lack of Black organ donors.
He hopes his story will encourage people, especially people of color, to sign up to be a donor and he says once you do that, share that information with family so they know you're on the list-- so if something happens to you-- your family member can potentially use your organs to save someone else.
When asked what the Pattersons would say to other parents that may be dealing with their children's addictions, Debbie advised them to keep pushing.
"Just don't ever give up. We never gave up no matter what. We tried to help them all the way through, and they have to help themselves that's the thing, but we never ever gave up."
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