‘He is a superhero.’ How a 6-year-old Grand Prairie boy saved a Fort Worth girl’s life
Jojo King wanted to be a superhero.
The 6-year-old Grand Prairie boy loved Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, and used to ask his dad, a homicide detective in the Atlanta area, if he could go catch bad guys with him.
In February 2020, Joseph King thought about his son’s larger-than-life dreams as he looked down at Jojo’s trembling body. The boy was unconscious and connected to tubes and wires strung up in a Dallas hospital ICU. He had been comatose for four days. Doctors told the family the swelling in his brain was irreversible — he was gone.
On Feb. 27, Jojo was taken off life support. King believed it was “time to let (Jojo) do superhero things” — so the family decided to have his organs donated.
The bubbly 6-year-old — who prided himself on his style and loved playing football — was gone.
But Jojo’s wish to save others was put into motion. Less than 50 miles away, another family was about to get the phone call they had long been waiting for.
Adriana’s story
The events that led to Jojo’s death are still unclear. According to the Dallas Medical Examiner’s Office, he died from a form of brain damage caused by loss of oxygen or drowning. Jojo’s mother and stepfather said they found him inside a toy chest, and he must have suffocated. But the medical examiner noted that Jojo was wet when EMS found him on Feb. 22 and noted in the autopsy report that “there was concern for possible homicidal drowning.”
On Dec. 22, Jojo’s stepfather was charged with injury to a child in connection with his death.
The Star-Telegram published a story about Jojo in January.
From her Fort Worth home, Andrea Pederson was scrolling through Facebook when she saw the photo of Jojo above the Star-Telegram article. She thought the boy looked familiar, and she clicked on the link.
As she read, the dots connected: She knew the child who donated a liver to her daughter was 6 years old and had died from a brain injury. Jojo had died the same day that she and Adriana’s father got the call about her daughter’s liver transplant.
“I knew it was him,” Pederson told the Star-Telegram.
Pederson’s daughter, Adriana Nixon, had a 1-in-a-million form of stage four cancer. The almost-8-year-old, who the Star-Telegram wrote about in February 2020, was diagnosed in June 2019 with hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC. The only available cure was to replace the liver, which could only succeed if doctors determined the cancer hadn’t spread. But even when that happened on Jan. 31, 2020, nothing was guaranteed.
After three weeks of waiting, Pederson and Adriana’s father, LeeAndrew Nixon, got the call on Feb. 27 that they needed to be at Children’s Medical Center Dallas within the hour for her transplant. The operation started on Feb. 28 at about 3 a.m., on Adriana’s 7th birthday.
Twelve hours later, Adriana woke up after a successful transplant surgery. The family did not know who the liver had come from — the donor could have been from anywhere in Texas. They could not have known that their daughter was staying in the same hospital where Jojo spent his final days.
That evening, Pederson went to her daughter’s room.
“She said she felt like she had been there before,” Pederson said. “That’s something that stuck with me when she said that.”
Connecting two families
After reading about Jojo in the Star-Telegram, Pederson knew she had to get in touch with King and contacted the newspaper, which passed along her information to King. Through the Southwest Transplant Alliance, the two confirmed that Jojo was the one who gave Adriana a liver — and a chance to live.
The two talked on the phone for the first time on Jan. 21.
“It was just a beautiful moment,” Pederson said about when she called King. “It was a relief to speak with him. It was comforting.”
The call was just as emotional for King.
“Hearing this story, it brought me to tears. But it wasn’t because I was sad,” he said. “I always said that my son wanted to be a superhero. And he has solidified himself as being a real live superhero. He saved her life.”
The two talked about their children and discovered a surprising number of similarities between Jojo and Adriana. Both wanted to become police officers — the Fort Worth Police Department even made Adriana an honorary police officer in January 2020 and has supported her and her family throughout her treatment. Jojo was just beginning to play baseball and was excited by the new sport, while Adriana has a love of softball. Their birthdays are exactly a month apart.
“I said, ‘My son, he’s not here no more, but he is still living,’” King said. “He is living through her.”
Two weeks ago, Pederson talked to Adriana about Jojo, explaining that he was the one who saved her.
“Definitely he’s a superhero,” she said. “He saved her. She wouldn’t have made it from stage 4 cancer to another birthday without him.”
Adriana is still receiving treatment, but recovered well from the transplant and is “doing amazing,” Pederson said in a post on Adriana Strong, a Facebook page about her daughter’s treatment. On Jan. 25, Adriana added a plaque with her name on it to the Children’s Health Dallas transplant wall. King hopes one day, he can hang Jojo’s name there, too.
Pederson and King keep in touch, texting regularly as King checks up on how Adriana is doing. When COVID-19 is over, King hopes to visit the family in person.
“Let’s rejoice, and let’s enjoy this little girl’s life,” King said.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
