'A great miracle'
BILL BULEY | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 15 years, 9 months AGO
<p>Ron Edgell received a donation from ElderHelp to purchase an airline ticket to Texas so he could visit his daughter who has leukemia.</p>
Bill Buley covers the city of Coeur d'Alene for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He has worked here since January 2020, after spending seven years on Kauai as editor-in-chief of The Garden Island newspaper. He enjoys running. | March 10, 2010 8:00 PM
COEUR d'ALENE - Ron Edgell's daughter is dying in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Coeur d'Alene man feared he wouldn't get to see her again.
He will.
"This is a great miracle they did, to provide me with a plane ticket," the 60-year-old said. "He's the one that did it," he added, nodding to John Corcoran sitting on the other side of a desk.
Corcoran, longtime organizer of Elder Help of North Idaho, received a phone call last week with one message: "John, you've got to help this guy."
It didn't take Corcoran long to put the word out and get that help.
Edgell, who works at the Post Falls Senior Center and is disabled due to a back injury, hasn't seen his 31-year-old daughter, April, for nearly six years. She has cystic fibrosis, a terminal respiratory illness. In the past three months she has been hospitalized five times.
"They don't think she's going to make it," Edgell said. "I want to get there before anything happens to her."
April is one of three daughters he raised after their mother died when the girls were young.
"I've been both mom and dad to all my kids," he said.
After trying for more than a month to come up with the money for an airplane ticket to get to his daughter in Texas, Edgell was out of options when Corcoran called.
After hearing Edgell's story, Corcoran sent out an e-mail to a volunteer group involved with Elder Help, a nonprofit that helps seniors with food, firewood and home repairs. Can anyone help, Corcoran asked.
Soon, he had $50. Then another $50, then $100 and $75. In all, he collected $400, enough for the plane ticket and a little traveling money for Edgell.
"Amazing, huh," Edgell said with a smile.
He'll leave Wednesday and spend a week with his daughter.
"She's real excited," he said.
Edgell broke his back in 2000 when he was working as a nurse and a patient fell on him, crushing some discs in his back, which led to nerve damage, surgery and arthritis.
The trip will be long, perhaps a little painful, but one he'll be thankful for when he steps on the plane.
"I'm really thrilled," Edgell said. "I'll get to see my daughter again."
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