By all accounts, Joe Lowry was the kind of guy who would do anything for anyone – a big teddy bear of a man who would give you the shirt off his back, or even, offer a kidney donation to a friend in need.
About two years ago, Lowry found himself in the latter position of offering to make that major sacrifice for his friend Nancy Cullen.
An inherited kidney disorder was worsening for Cullen. Her life would soon be in danger.
A new kidney was needed and Cullen was on a waiting list for a transplant.
Upon learning of this, Lowry offered to get tested to see if he could be a match for a donation to Cullen.
He didn’t want his friend to suffer and without hesitation he put himself forward as a living donor candidate to prevent that. He was willing to give up a vital organ to keep his friend from having to wait for an anonymous donation that might never come.
“Joe was willing to step up,” said Eddie Cullen, Nancy’s husband.
He soon learned, however, that he wasn’t a good candidate for the procedure and his generosity couldn’t be realized. But after a cruel twist of fate, Lowry’s offer did come through for Cullen, though it came in a manner that no one wanted to see happen.
This past fall, Lowry was killed in a tragic late-night car crash on the way to his home in The Villas section of Lower Township. Upon his passing, one of his kidneys went to Cullen to help save her life.
“Why did this have to happen to him, for this to happen for me?” Cullen said with eyes filled with tears.
The crash came in the early-morning hours of Oct. 30 last year. Lowry, his wife Jenny, their niece Alex Shepherd and Shepherd’s two young daughters were headed south on Route 347.
Jenny Lowry said she was riding in the backseat with the girls. Her husband was driving and her niece was in the front passenger seat.
Lowry said that not long after getting on 347, Joe looked in his rear-view mirror and remarked about a car that appeared to be coming up on them quickly from behind.
“I turned around and could see the lights on the road,” Lowry said. “All of a sudden he hit us from behind.”
Lowry said the impact caused Joe to lose control of their vehicle. Both cars ran off the road, and she said they ended up in the woods there in Maurice River Township in Cumberland County.
She said she could see that Joe and Alex were “completely out of it” in the front seat. She and the girls were hurt in the backseat, but conscious.
In another odd twist to this story, the reason the family found themselves on the road that morning was that Shepherd had been in another accident just prior to that crash. The Lowrys’ niece and her daughters were also struck from behind, in the middle of a busy intersection in Deptford, Gloucester County, several hours earlier.
They had traveled to that area to attend cheerleading practice, Shepherd said. The car that hit them pushed their vehicle into one that was stopped in front of them. Their car was totaled and the three of them were all taken to Kennedy Hospital in nearby Washington Township for treatment.
That Lowry was the one to come pick them up that night, Shepherd said, was just further testament to the narrative that he would do anything for anyone. She said her Uncle Joe and Aunt Jenny were always there for her, helping with the kids or doing whatever she needed.
Shepherd’s parents were away at the time, and as was so often the case, it was Joe who stepped in to lend a hand.
“He would do anything in a second for anybody.” Shepherd said of her uncle.
After the second crash, all five family members eventually ended up being transported to the trauma unit at Cooper Hospital in Camden.
“The next thing I know I was waking up in another hospital,” Shepherd said.
Lowry said she and the girls were all released within five days, but the injuries suffered by her niece and husband were more severe. She said Alex was there for about two-and-a-half weeks before being released and Joe was transferred to a rehab facility after three weeks.
He was at the rehab facility for only about one week before the story took its most tragic turn.
It was Thanksgiving. Family members joined Joe in the rehab center to celebrate with him. They shared a meal and their hopes of his being released soon. They were extra thankful that it appeared his recovery was moving in the right direction.
But only a few hours later they received a call with shocking news. They were told Joe’s heart had stopped in the night and his brain function had ceased. He was being kept alive by life support machines.
Once it was certain that there was no way to save Joe’s life, Jenny knew she had to move fast to help save others.
“Right away I said, ‘ok, we know people who need organs and he’s an organ donor,’” Lowry said. “The end of life is hard. You don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or not. It’s difficult, but I knew that this is what he would want.”
Lowry worked with the NJ Sharing Network, a New Jersey-based organ donation and transplant non-profit, and their counterpart in Pennsylvania, Gift of Life, to help coordinate the preservation and transplant of Joe’s organs, including the direct donation of his kidney to Cullen.
Cullen said she struggles with expressing the extent of her gratitude to the Lowrys, calling the feeling “bittersweet,” knowing that she’s lost a friend but gained a better chance at a longer, healthier life.
Her husband Eddie echoed the feeling.
“It’s hard to be happy and sad at the same time,” Eddie Cullen said.
The experience, he said, has left him in awe of Jenny’s selflessness in the immediate wake of her husband’s death.
“Her husband was passing away and she was worried about setting this up,” he said of the organ donations. “I can’t imagine that kind of strength.”
As for the particulars of the investigation into the fatal crash, the criminal case is still pending. The other vehicle involved was driven by 21-year-old Joseph Orozco, of Rio Grande in Middle Township. According to reports published at the time, Orozco and two passengers in his vehicle were uninjured in the wreck.
Orozco has been charged with one count of second degree vehicular homicide in relation to Lowry’s death and four counts of third degree assault by auto.
According to Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae, the case is waiting to go to the grand jury and her office is awaiting additional evidence from the New Jersey State Police.
In an email, Webb-McRae said Orozco was released from jail on January 30, pending trial, and he is required to report to the court on a weekly basis.
April is National Donate Life Month, and it should be noted that Cullen was not the only recipient of Lowry’s organs.
According to a letter from NJ Sharing Network, Joe’s liver was transplanted into a 65-year-old man, and his corneas were also donated. Several of his tissues, including heart valves, tendons, veins and bone, were also collected and can be preserved for use in recipients for up to five years after his death.
But Joe’s other kidney also found a recipient through direct donation. That transplant went to family friend Kevin Osborn.
As with Cullen, Lowry knew that Osborn’s health was failing and he was in need of a kidney transplant. He was going through dialysis and NJ Sharing Network helped to facilitate the donation.
Like the Cullens, Osborn said the emotions involved with that level of gratitude can be almost too much to take.
“It’s overwhelming,” Osborn said. “The first couple days were like a blur. After a couple days it just started hitting me and it sunk in.”
Knowing that his friend is now actually a part of him is something that’s not lost on Osborn.
“Joe was an unbelievable person,” he said. “He’s going to walk with me to my last breath.”
The two recipients will now also have a special bond with Jenny.
“I told them, you’re not going to get rid of me too fast, because now I’m married to your kidney,” Lowry said, adding that she’s nicknamed the pair Nancy-Joe and Kevin-Joe in honor of her late husband. “I will see them for the rest of their lives and the rest of mine.”
Joe Lowry was 53 when he died. Originally from Philadelphia, he was a long-time Villas resident and he worked for the Cape May County Roads Department. He was married to Jenny for 26 years and the couple had three sons together – Finnian, Gannon and Aidan
“We miss him,” Jenny said, fighting through the tears. “He’s missing out on our baby.”
The baby Lowry referenced was their grandson Kiernan, Aidan’s 15-month-old boy.
While there can be no consolation for losing his father, or for not having him around as grandfather to his son, it sounds as though the example he was provided growing up with Joe will serve him well as he starts his own family.
“You couldn’t ask for a better dad. You couldn’t ask for a better role model,” Aidan said. “I really would love to emulate exactly what he did.”
And like his mom, Aidan said he knows the donation of his organs, and the legacy that brings, is just what his dad would have wanted.
“I’m sure he’s clapping a little bit up there, saying, ‘thank God, someone’s going to live longer because of me,” the son said of his father. “I know that’s exactly what he would think.”
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