'Why not try?': How a Nashville woman got a plane in the air on 9/11 to save a baby

'Why not try?': How a Nashville woman got a plane in the air on 9/11 to save a baby

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — As planes across the country were ordered out of the sky on Sept. 11, 2001, a six-month-old baby in Houston was running out of time.

A donor liver was available at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, but getting it to the critically ill child appeared nearly impossible amid the unprecedented shutdown of U.S. airspace.

Twenty-five years later, the woman who helped find a way around that obstacle has finally met the baby whose life was saved.

Jill Grandas, now CEO of Tennessee Donor Services, remembers arriving at work on Sept. 11 after dropping her children off at school. By then, both World Trade Center towers had been hit and the Federal Aviation Administration had grounded civilian air traffic nationwide.

Shortly after Grandas arrived, her staff called from Vanderbilt.

“We have a pediatric donor case going on right now, and the planes have been grounded so our charter can’t leave to take this liver to Houston,” Grandas recalled.

Waiting in Houston was six-month-old Kareena, who Grandas was told was within hours of death.

Kareena would not have survived,” Grandas told FOX 17 News. “She was gonna die within 24 hours if she didn’t get a liver transplant. So it was very dire. ‘Why not try?’

With charter planes grounded, Grandas began looking for another option.

Her thinking was simple: If the FAA had the authority to ground the planes, perhaps it could help get one back into the air.

“I just thought, why not try?” Grandas said. “It certainly wasn’t going to hurt anything, so I had to try.”

This was 2001, before smartphones made finding a phone number a matter of seconds. Grandas went to the mailroom, picked up a phone book and searched the government listings for the number to the air traffic control tower at Nashville International Airport.

Then, she called.

“The shocking thing was that they answered the phone,” Grandas said.

She was eventually connected with Sherry Jensen, the tower supervisor working that day. Grandas said Jensen understood the urgency because she had personal experience with a loved one who had needed a transplant.

The two sides stayed connected as calls were made and a plan came together.

“We never hung up. We didn’t want to get cut off,” Grandas recalled.

Grandas said less than an hour and a half passed between her initial call and the approval and transportation of the organ to Berry Field, where the Tennessee Air National Guard would take over.

“No one ever said no,” she said.

The Tennessee Air National Guard ultimately flew the donor liver from Nashville to Houston.

For Grandas, getting word that the flight had been cleared brought one overriding emotion: relief.

“Just feeling a weight lifted,” she said.

The liver made it to Houston. Kareena received her transplant and survived.

Meeting 25 years later

Grandas followed Kareena’s progress through media reports in the years after the transplant. The two eventually connected by phone and virtually, but they had never met face-to-face.

That changed almost 25 years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Grandas and Kareena, now 25, finally met in person last week.

“It was just so joyful,” Grandas said. “It was just pure joy, I think, is how I would describe it.”

Grandas said Kareena has called her on Sept. 11 for the past several years, grateful for the work that connected the donated liver in Nashville to the transplant team that saved her life.

Seeing Kareena as an adult also reinforced for Grandas the responsibility carried by those working in organ donation.

People count on organ donor programs like ours throughout this country,” she said. “People count on us to make sure that the donated organ gets to the patients who are in need. And it’s an awesome responsibility.

For Grandas, Kareena’s survival will forever be intertwined with a day remembered for tremendous loss.

“It’s bittersweet because there was so much tragedy and there’s still so much sorrow around that day for everyone, every American,” Grandas said. “I feel blessed for being able to be a part of this work and blessed for being able to help Kareena.”

Twenty-five years later, she also sees the story as an example of what people were capable of accomplishing together in an extraordinary moment.

I think it shows the strength of Americans and the fortitude and the tenacity when you’re faced with something that seems like it can’t be done,” Grandas said.

To consider registering as an organ donor, you can visit donatelifetn.org