MENTOR, Ohio — It's never easy losing a loved one, but when you have the support of a community, it lessens the pain.
On Wednesday, the McGee family felt the strength and power of having hundreds of people in their corner as a fundraiser drew a large crowd.
RELATED: Mentor High School mourns death of 14-year-old student
14-year-old Lucas McGee passed away earlier this month after collapsing during a wrestling conditioning exercise two weeks prior.
"The doctors have told us that they can't answer what caused it, but it was a sudden cardiac arrest," McGee's dad, Dave, told me last week. "The EMTs were on scene within a couple of minutes and CPR was started, from what I understand, immediately by the cross country coach."
Dave said the rhythm strips from the defibrillator machine showed McGee was having ventricular fibrillation.
"Which is where the ventricles of the heart, they don't fully contract. They fibrillate or just kind of half squeeze, which means no blood flow is coming out of the heart," Dave said. "He was shocked a total of 20 times with a defibrillator trying to restart his heart over a period of around an hour before his heart was able to start beating again."
Dave said due to his son's heart not beating for 60 minutes, it led to hypoxic brain damage, which means there was a lack of oxygen, and his brain tissue degenerated.
"We were basically told... that if he were to fully recover lung and heart function, he would most likely be deaf, blind, and unable to interact with the world in a meaningful way. Lucas wouldn't want to have no quality of life," Dave said. "It would be selfish for us to keep him here and not let him go be with God."
On Oct. 9, McGee's parents made the toughest decision they've ever made and took him off his ventilator.
Since then, through the heartache, the Mentor community has wrapped its arms around the McGee family.
On Wednesday, the Happy Moose hosted a 50/50 raffle and auction, donating 20% of the night's proceeds to the McGees.
"It's very family, community-oriented. Even on a personal level, it was heartbreaking to us because we do employ a lot of students. A lot of the families come in. We have students that go off to college and then come back. We're as family-run as a family-run business could be. Over the years we really have built relationships with a lot of the community. For us, it was kind of a no brainer in terms of doing whatever we could do," Happy Moose co-owner, Chris Tsilianidis, told me.
He said donating 20% of their Wednesday proceeds didn't feel like an obligation — that it's something the business agreed was the right thing to do.
"We always try to do anything that we can do, especially with the athletic departments. To donate, you know, provide food, whatever we can do," Tsilianidis said.
Greg Pike's son wrestled with Lucas in middle school and said he was hit hard by the news of Lucas' passing, so anything he could do to support the family, he knew he wanted to.
"I met Dave in high school and our sons ended up wrestling together at Shore at the same weight and really, it was a joy watching Lucas McGee wrestle. He was high spirited, always fun, just a joy to be around. I always called him Gumby because he's very stretchy and very difficult to pin, and that was one of his attributes, but he was just a joyful, charismatic, just an excellent young man," Pike said.
Pike helped put together Wednesday's fundraiser, which attracted hundreds of people.
Before it even started at 5 p.m., crowds packed the Happy Moose.
From signed Browns gear to sweet treats and an espresso machine, over a dozen items were auctioned off, with more than 4,000 tickets having been sold, according to fundraiser organizer, Jeff Cook.
"It does warm my heart. It's absolutely fantastic," Pike said. "A lot of people have worked hard together in the Mentor community and all the businesses are supporting us wholeheartedly, and there are probably 20 different awesome prizes."
Among the crowd of people, several of McGee's teammates and friends showed up, like Frankie and Mason Noga.
Frankie described McGee as funny and his brother said he really knew how to light up a room.
"Nothing bad you could say about him," Mason said. "I miss him."
Frankie added, "I think it's great how many people are supporting him through the hard times."
Another friend of McGee's, Hunter Sik, told me showing up on Wednesday "just feels right to come out here for him."
Sik said he met McGee in sixth grade.
"He was a great guy. You see him in the hall, you're having a bad day, he can make you laugh. That's what he was good at. He was good at making people smile," Sik said. "Lucas, you know, meant a lot to me."
He's now cherishing the memories he has with McGee, like his eighth-grade trip to Washington, D.C.
"We were just going around to random stores because why not, you know, and just him being there kept it humorous. It was just a fun time in general," Sik said.
It's stories like Sik's that keep McGee's memory alive and his family feeling the impact their son made on others.
"All I have gotten for the last two weeks are stories of how Lucas was the bright spot on somebody's worst day or just made a bad situation better and it really goes to show you the impression that he had," Dave told me on Wednesday.
Dave said he felt humbled by the number of people who showed up to the fundraiser.
"Lucas' impact and his legacy are a community coming together in a major way. We've already heard stories of people who saw the service on Monday and asked, you know, how can his parents, how can his family, how can his church be so composed and say I need to learn about God's peace. I need to learn about Jesus because I need that in my life," Dave said.
McGee was a preschool teacher at his church, and his dad said he was devoted to his faith, so to hear people are turning to God in this time of hurt is what McGee would have wanted.
"He's jumping up and down. Lucas is in a place where there's no more pain and no more sadness. We're sad. Our earthly hearts are missing him, but he's in heaven and he says, 'Live for me. Keep living, but keep bringing people to Jesus,'" Dave said. "At the end of the day, Lucas made an impression, and Lucas sowed the seeds that made everybody love him."
Dave said he will forever be thankful for those who have shown up in the way they have since McGee's passing, especially on Wednesday.
"From the bottom of my heart, thank you for loving us. Thank you for loving Lucas, and thank you for doing everything you can to help us heal and mend from the scenario. Nothing will ever replace him, but we know that we have a community behind us and we're going to find a way to make good come of this. I promise you that," Dave said.
If you'd like to donate to McGee's family, a GoFundMe has been created. Proceeds will go towards funeral/memorial expenses, unanticipated medical bills, and other immediate and unexpected needs, according to the donation page.
