Manuel Mendoza

More than a year ago February 2025, to be exact, our lives changed in an instant, and we learned just how fragile and precious life truly is

It started when my husband, Manuel began feeling unwell. I rushed him to the emergency room here in Lovington, where we live, and within moments he was airlifted to Lubbock, Texas. A catheter was placed in one of his arteries, and for a brief moment, it seemed like things were going to be okay.

That night, he decided to take a shower and that’s when the unthinkable happened. He collapsed in the bathroom. What followed was over an hour that our family and I will never forget. Doctors and nurses fought desperately to bring him back as his heart stopped not once, but multiple times leaving him without life for minutes at a stretch.

It was the hardest thing our family has ever faced. After two days of fighting for his life in Lubbock, he was airlifted again this time to Dallas, Texas. For two months, our family and I lived on prayer, on hope, and on the strength of the medical team who never gave up on him. Day and night, we were at his side.

He came home not fully healed, but alive. Since then, he has been in and out of hospitals, facing new challenges each time, as we wait and pray for a heart transplant, or at the very least, a life-sustaining device called an LVAD. We are a family that has stared into the darkest corners of life and chosen to keep fighting. Any support you are able to offer means more to us than words can express. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

-Family and friends of Manuel Mendoza are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with a transplant. Manuel has chosen to fund raise with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible for contributors and will only be used to cover medical and related expenses.