Predrag Mijatović loved adrenaline, motorcycles… but fate had it that he’d die at age 21! Father: "Since our Peđa is already gone, let someone else live"

"Since our child is already gone, let someone else live. At least a part of our son will remain alive," said Jova Mijatović on 11 July 1995, the moment he was told that his firstborn son, Predrag - Peđa, healthy and full of life just the day before, had died—at not even 21 years old. To be precise, he was brain dead, which amounts to the same thing. It was a time of war, sanctions, and no transplant system, let alone organ donation campaigns or the interne... The following day, 12 July 1995, the first-ever liver transplant in Serbia was performed, along with heart and pancreas transplants—all at the Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases Dedinje.

Finding the family was a real detective endeavour, full of misdirections and dead ends. But the effort was worth it..

Kula—a town in Bačka, where even today, the main street is still called Marshal Tito Street. And, surprisingly enough, they even have a Lenin Street. Even the municipality, Catholic and Orthodox churches, and the police all stand under the name of the Russian communist leader… A few minutes’ drive from the centre, there is a house on the corner of two streets. A spacious gate left open. The letterbox reads "Mijatović." We are welcomed by Željko, as his adorable daughter and son run down the stairs. As soon as we enter, we are met by a smiling young face—from a drawing. Peđa. He is always there, even though he has been gone for 30 years. Wherever you go in this house, you have to see him. Even the children know who their uncle was.

From downstairs, Jova arrives—the father. His handshake is firm, his demeanour reserved—perhaps even distrustful. He sits down, and his hands tremble slightly. Even after so many years, it is hard. Reliving those days of despair, pain, false hope—where there was none—only disappointment…

 Peđa was everything to Jova and Slavica, their firstborn, arriving in 1974.

"He started aeromodelling in primary school. That’s where he fell in love with planes, so he enrolled in an aviation high school in Mostar. He finished two years, then war broke out, the country fell apart, and he came home. He was supposed to go to the army’s ground forces school, since we didn’t have an aviation school anymore. But he wasn’t interested in that, so he enrolled in a grammar school in Krstur, in the third year," his father recalls.

At the time, Jova opened a tavern and a shop.

"I handed the shop over to Peđa, to run the business. But everything was still in my name—I paid all the taxes. He just rubbed his hands together and said, ‘This is good, you know?’" his father smiles, his eyes glistening with fond memories.

"He loved speed, motorcycles. "Through a friend of mine, he got a motorbike about a year before the accident. Maybe more. He kept fixing it, constantly modifying things—changed the colour, fine-tuned the details.".

That autumn in 1995, he was supposed to join the army. And after returning, he planned to get married. That was his and his girlfriend’s the plan. But then came 8 July. A day that, by all accounts, should have been just another ordinary day. Jova and Slavica went to Crvenka, to visit her parents.

"Peđa and I were at home. That motorbike was always breaking down, so we started working on it. I was just a kid—15 years old—but I was helping him.” “He couldn’t fix the problem, but he got the engine running and headed off to a friend’s house—someone who knew a lot about motorcycles," Željko chimes in.
“His friend wasn’t home, so Peđa decided to keep riding—to Crvenka. Perhaps he just wanted to go for a ride on his Java, or maybe something else. We will never know.”

Jova and Željko Mijatović, father and brother of Predrag Mijatović, whose organs were donated in 1995

"Some say he was riding with someone else. That another bike appeared. That they were racing. That they were riding side by side. We never found out the truth. There was a Zastava 750 in front of him. At some point, it turned left—without a signal. He crashed straight into it, flew through the air, and hit a lamppost head-first. He wasn’t wearing a helmet," his father recounts. According to police records, the accident occurred at 5:40 PM at the intersection of Marshal Tito Street and Branko Radičević Street in Kula.

A friend called the Mijatović family to tell them Peđa had been in an accident They rushed to Vrbas, where he was first put on life support, then transferred to Novi Sad. The next day, they saw him.

"He was on life support, his head bandaged. I saw it—I will never forget it. His fingers moved slightly, some reflex, like he was holding on…" his father recalls.

“And just then, I notice the large New Year's gnome across from the father. Standing on thin legs, like on stilts. As if they are looking at each other. Suddenly, I realise—everything in the house reminds me that it’s the holiday season. A feeling that makes your skin crawl.

"I didn’t know what brain death was until I lived through it. No one should ever find out the way I did. I regret that no one explained it to us immediately—that we watched Peđa move his fingers and clung to hope. But he was already gone. As soon as he hit the lamppost with his head, he was practically dead. There were other things that happened, but after 30 years, there’s no point in talking about them anymore," says the father.

 They were standing in the courtyard of the Institute for Surgery at the University of Medicine in Novi Sad when the doctor told them there was no hope or coming back.

"My mother screamed. They said they would turn off the machines," Željko remembers it all.

It was 11 July. The director of the Institute at the time, the late Dr Đorđe Janjić, took the parents into his office. In their state of shock, the question followed—the one about organ donation.

"My wife refused at first. We started walking towards the door, but then I turned around and said: ‘Why shouldn’t we help? Since our child is already gone, let someone else live…’" Jova recounts.

Official time of death: 13:15, that same day .Everything that followed became part of Serbian medical history.

"A few days later, when the media reported that the transplants had taken place at 'Dedinje', I went to the hospital. I saw all three patients. All on machines, with masks on, lying there—you couldn’t see a face, you couldn’t see anything," the father recalls.

I take a piece of honey cake, my hands shaking. Željko's wife, Katarina, has golden hands.
Željko brings out a photo album.

"Can you believe it? There’s not a single picture of him on that motorbike.".

We flip through the pages.

"Look, that’s Peđa," his brother smiles, as the silhouette of a child peeks from behind the handlebars of a huge motorcycle.

"Croatia—when we went to the seaside, he took a photo on someone else’s bike." The smile returns, and his father’s eyes glisten.

Here he is in a plane. Mostar. Then, in front of the Old Bridge—the famous one, the one destroyed in the war.

"Every time we see this photo, we say: ‘There is no bridge. And there is no Peđa.’," his brother says..

"I often think—if it weren’t for that war, if he had stayed in Mostar, if his path had been different… maybe he would still be alive," the father says.

Let it go, Dad…"

His mother is gone too, passing away a few years ago. And now, the two Mijatović men want just one thing.

"…" Jova says as they see us off.

Night falls. On the massive birch tree, a birdhouse peeks out.

"I love parrots, so in summer, I sit under the tree and listen to them," Jova says.

Life must go on…

It also should for the nearly 2,000 people still waiting for a transplant.... For those who depend on us.