When Barry McCallum (46) started his Opel Corsa on February 20, it caught fire.
READ:
Burn victim identified as Barry McCallum
He was transported to Life the Glynnwood Hospital with between 50 to 70 per cent burns on his body.
His brother, Kevin, said Barry was declared brain dead on the morning of March 9.
“Those machines have been keeping him alive since Monday [March 6] night, but the cardiac arrest and the battle to bring him back from the brink was too much for Barry to handle,” Kevin said on his Facebook page.
“His brain was starved of oxygen for too long.
“Tests confirmed there was no brain function.
“The last test was done this morning.”
Barry’s organs were harvested.
Kevin said his brother – who was, like him, a City Times journalist in the ’90s – had a brilliant mind.
“He had an incredible intellect,” Kevin explained.
“He joked that he was a human Google – he knew things.
“He had a knowledge of the world that was wide, he rode bikes, he drew pictures of his dogs, he wrote wonderfully.
“He could be difficult, argumentative and stubborn, but he was always Barry.”
His brother said he loved his dogs, and his children were everything to him.
He leaves behind his sons Conor and Breandan, his mother, Mary, and his brother, Kevin.
The funeral will be held on Friday (March 17), at St Dominic’s Catholic Church, in Boksburg, at 2pm.
The family thanked Dr Liam Brannigan and the ICU team at the Glynnwood.
“There was no one like Barry – no one; he never settled for the ordinary,” Kevin said.
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