A. A Tale of Two Cities

It was a Sunday night, June 6, 1993, when Mrs. Frances Lucas discovered her semiconscious son. William Michael Lucas, 34, had sustained an unmerciful beating. Covered in a pool of blood, Michael had somehow managed to struggle from the front door to his mother's kitchen floor. Despite his urgent medical condition, police and ambulance were slow to respond. One lone officer finally arrived, but would not call for an ambulance to the home. So Mrs. Lucas dragged her son into her car, placing him as gently as she could in the backseat and drove off to the hospital. One week later, two very different men would be fighting for their lives. Michael would lose, but the Governor, Robert Casey (Pennsylvania), would survive with a pair of new organs.

Days after his brutal beating and shortly after being declared brain dead, Michael's heart and liver were delicately inserted into the waiting caverns of Governor Casey who was dying from amyloidosis. Michael was the “wrong guy” caught in a vicious cycle. Michael Lucas was a victim of mistaken identity, bludgeoned by a drug gang that “beat up the wrong man.” Local police described the attackers as a fleet of gang members from Pittsburgh who swarmed into this small Monessen town looking for trouble. Beaten by life, unemployed, but searching for work, Michael was the second of two sons to die violently. Most of his attackers were never found. Michael's forgotten contribution to the state of Pennsylvania was saving the life of Governor Casey.