JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A Jacksonville family is sharing the emotional experience of watching their loved one take his final walk down a hospital hallway \u2014 as an organ donor.<\/p>\n
Jeffery Warwick was a P.E. and health teacher of more than 30 years in Duval County Public Schools, a football coach, a church volunteer and, by nearly every account, a man loved by everyone he met.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he knew you, he loved you, and if he loved you, he knew you,\u201d said his wife, Sharon Warwick.<\/p>\n
Jeff\u2019s daughter, Julianna Warwick-Jones, recalled him as a unique storyteller.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard them time and time again,\u201d Julianna said.<\/p>\n
In late June, Sharon was outside doing yard work when she got off the phone with her husband. Moments later, he called back.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe called almost right back and said, \u2018My pressure dropped,\u2019 and he never said that to me before, so I didn\u2019t know what he meant,\u201d Sharon recalled.<\/p>\n
Jeff had suffered a cardiac arrest. He was rushed to the hospital, where he died within the week from an anoxic brain injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery range of emotion you could think of,\u201d Sharon said, describing that week.<\/p>\n
That grief carried into the hallway at HCA Florida Memorial Hospital, where family members, friends, former players and fraternity brothers lined the corridor to honor Jeff during his walk to the operating room. He donated his liver and both kidneys.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was so giving in life,\u201d Sharon said, \u201cthat he was then able to give organs to people who needed them and continued to live.\u201d<\/p>\n
ICU Nurse Daniel New was by the family\u2019s side through some of their hardest moments \u2014 taking vitals, giving updates and staying close. He recalled meeting over a dozen family members in his first shift in that room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to many honor walks and I\u2019ve never seen such a turnout,\u201d New said.<\/p>\n
The family and nurse grew so close that the Warwicks made clear New had a standing invitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve pretty much adopted him. He can come home with us any time he wants to,\u201d Sharon said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A Jacksonville family is sharing the emotional experience of watching their loved one take his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1089,10114,152120,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-378441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-family","tag-hca-florida-memorial-hospital","tag-honor-walk","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}