Far Too Young

Printed in “The Herald-Dispatch”, December 5, 2008

49 and 15. A gifted heart surgeon and a passionate equestrian. A father and a daughter. A husband and an only child. Sometimes life can be horribly cruel.

On Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008, former Huntington residents Jeffery George, M.D., 49, and his daughter Hannah, 15, were driving to the riding stables near their home in Roanoke, Va., when something went terribly wrong. The car ran off of the road, slammed into a guardrail, flipped over on its side and burst into flames. In an instant they were gone, leaving behind a wife and mother. Teresa George is now completely alone in an unkind world; and her grief must be unimaginable.

I was privileged to know Jeff George through our work together on the St. Mary’s Medical Center Foundation board. In addition to being the most renowned cardiothoracic surgeon in the region, he was one of those rare people who gave tirelessly of his time and talent. He was, among many other things, a professor and chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at MU’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine; chief of cardiac surgery at St. Mary’s; and the driving force behind the Comfort House next to St. Mary’s that bears his name. He was also one of the finest men I have ever known.

Jeff was also the surgeon who saved my mother’s life. Born and raised in Huntington, he earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University and his medical degree from WVU, and he trained with some of the finest heart specialists in the world in Louisville, Ky. More than just a skilled surgeon, he also possessed a special charm and reassuring smile that endeared him to his patients. “He’s a dear, sweet man,” my mom said of him after her heart surgery. I’m sure hundreds of his former patients felt the same.

Jeff spent nearly two decades in Huntington where he left an indelible mark. In 2006 he decided to move back to the Roanoke area to be closer to his wife’s family and help foster his daughter’s growing interest in competitive riding. But that should come as no surprise to anyone who saw the special relationship he shared with his daughter. She was his world, and the two of them were inseparable. It only seems fitting that they were together during their final moments.

Death is something that awaits all of us, but it is supposed to be reserved for those who have lived a long life. Jeff and Hannah were far too young, and it is hard to come to terms with why they were taken now. All that remains is an emptiness and a pain and a longing for what might have been. Nothing good can come from a tragedy like this. Try as we might to find something, anything, to comfort us, it simply doesn’t exist. All we are left with is our mourning and our tears for two beautiful people who were taken from us long before their time. Who knows how many more lives Jeff would have touched. Who knows what the future held for Hannah. There will be no proms or college or children for her. And somewhere in a barn near Roanoke a horse she loved waits in vain to be ridden once again.