Birthday tragedy gives life to others - 15-year-old decided to be an organ donor just months before fall from horse

VALLEY SPRINGS -- Morgan Thomas died the way she lived: with the wind in her face and love in her heart.

Thomas turned 15 Saturday. As a birthday treat, she took her first ride on Kia, her grandmother's half-Arabian, half-quarter horse mare. Kia tripped. Thomas was thrown from the horse and suffered a fatal head injury.

"She was so happy, she was so contented," her sister, Brittany Haubursin, 19, said of the final moments before the accident in the carefully tended riding arena next to the family's home on Southworth Road.

The accident happened about 10 a.m. Thomas was flown by helicopter to the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where she was pronounced dead at 2:30 p.m.

A few months before her death, Thomas had seen a television show about organ donors. She insisted on telling her uneasy mother and sisters that she, too, wanted to be a donor if something should happen to her.

"You can see God's hand in this," said her grandmother, Mary Lou Andrews of Angels Camp. Family members said Wednesday that three children's lives have been saved already thanks to donations of Thomas' pancreas, kidneys and other organs.

Friends and family described the dark-haired Thomas as a friendly and adventurous girl with a buoyant spirit.

Haubursin recalled the time last fall when she, Thomas and a friend had ditched school to go skating at Stockton's Oak Park ice arena -- not long after her mother, Gina Neal, had warned her there would be consequences to wrongdoing.

Thomas broke her ankle that day.

"She learned a lesson," Neal said.

Another sister, Ashley Haubursin, 20, remembered Thomas as a quick wit and a class clown.

Thomas was well-known in Valley Springs and surrounding towns, both for her skill as the catcher of the Sliders softball team and for her powerful voice.

"She was a thinker and a leader, and they called her 'Mouth,' " said Ashley Haubursin, who had once played on the same softball team, also as catcher.

"She was a wonderful young lady," said Mike Merrill, principal of Calaveras High School, who had known Thomas during his previous tenure as principal of Valley Springs Elementary School.

Thomas recently withdrew from Calaveras High School because she, her mother, her sisters and her grandparents were preparing to move to Tennessee. That's why her grandmother had temporarily moved Kia to the arena next to Thomas's home.

"My horse was supposed to be transported out at the end of the month," Andrews said. "Morgan wanted to ride her. I said, 'You can ride her, Morgan. She won't buck you off.' "

Thomas followed her grandmother's instructions, first lunging Kia, horse terminology for running the mare in circles on a tether to calm her before the ride.

Thomas, an experienced rider, did everything properly, according to witnesses. Kia also cooperated. She didn't buck. But then, inexplicably, she tripped. Kia ended up with a cut on her forehead. Andrews sold her the next day.

If things had been different, if Kia and Thomas had bonded, then Andrews might even have given the horse to her granddaughter. Family members said that Thomas' pony, Ginger, got sick and had to be euthanized just three weeks ago.

Brittany Haubursin wept Wednesday as she stood over the flowers in the arena where the accident happened.

"It's so hard to believe she was just here," Haubursin said. "We couldn't help her."

In addition to Brittany and Ashley Haubursin, and her mother, Thomas also is survived by her youngest sister, Anna Neal, 6.

Gina Neal, Thomas' mother, is well-known in the region because she owned and operated the espresso stand in the Kaiser Permanente facility in Stockton for many years. Neal also made headlines in December 2004 when her 96-square-foot shed that she converted into a drive-up cafe was stolen from a parking lot on Cherokee Road near Highway 99.