When a loved one gets hurt or is ill, those holding vigil in hospitals can find themselves spending hours, days, even months sitting in waiting rooms.
Jupiter residents Bill and Susan Ryan know this waiting game all too well, and it’s why they chose to earmark their $1.5 million gift to Jupiter Medical Center for the outdoor Bill and Susan Ryan Healing Terrace at the hospital’s new Johnny and Terry Gray Surgical Institute.
In 1987, when the family lived in Miami, the Ryans’ son, Billy Jr., was visiting home during a break from Purdue University and headed to Key Biscayne beach to play volleyball with some friends.
Like his father, Billy Jr. was an athlete, having played on the 1985 Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School baseball team that won a national high school championship. Bill Sr. had been a high school wonder, striking out 96 of the 133 batters he faced during his senior year at Fair Haven Union High School in Vermont. He would later pitch for Notre Dame and eventually go pro, playing with the Milwaukee Braves organization and other teams.
During the beach outing, Billy and his friends decided to go for a swim, taking turns diving off a jetty. The other boys dove in with no trouble, but somehow—a dip in the tide, his 6-foot frame—Billy’s head struck bottom.
“He was very lucky in that one of the kids knew CPR well,” says Bill.
The friend kept Billy alive as the boys awaited a helicopter that would take him to the emergency room. But that was just the beginning.
“When our son was hurt, he was in the ICU and there was no waiting room,” Susan recalls. “We sat in the hallway with extremely ill people all around us. It was very difficult.”
Billy would spend the next 10 months in the hospital, giving the Ryans what they call “rare insight” into the needs of patients’ families. It also set them on a new course of action in medical philanthropy.
About two years earlier, Marc Buoniconti, son of Hall of Fame football player Nick Buoniconti, suffered a spinal cord injury during a college football game. As Bill explains, he and Nick had a close neurosurgeon friend in Miami who always wanted to find a cure for spinal cord issues. Susan and Bill helped to launch the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, which was founded by Nick and Dr. Barth A. Green. “We spent 15 years raising money for their work,” Bill adds.
Both Billy and Marc were left quadriplegic due to their injuries, but they have lived long, productive lives. Billy now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the father of three sons.
“I don’t know anybody like Billy, except Marc, who has the willpower and desire to be independent and function so well,” says Bill. “But it’s been hard.”
The elder Ryan has had his own share of hospital experience. He counts more than 40 operations, many of them to fix orthopedic damage from his sporting days, plus two open-heart surgeries. “I’ve had a lot of practice recovering, and Susie’s had a lot of practice with someone who requires a lot of care,” Bill notes.
“What a difference it makes for families to be comfortable and able to rest, to take five minutes to be able to go out and get fresh air,” Susan adds. “We felt we needed a different kind of waiting room, and we saw this as an opportunity to make a bigger commitment to the community.”
That’s the goal of the healing terrace at JMC’s new Surgical Institute. A spacious open patio just outside the main waiting lounge, the terrace offers afternoon shade and tables and chairs where families can sip coffee from the surgical institute’s café or just enjoy breezes from the nearby Atlantic.
Besides JMC, the Ryans are active donors in more than a dozen other charitable causes. They have scholarships for students at Fair Haven and Notre Dame, and they support several food pantries in Vermont, where they summer at their 500-acre Hilltop Farm near Lake Champlain.
“We grew up in very modest-income families and, in some ways, downright poor,” says Bill. “But my mother would always say, ‘The more you give, the more God will give back to you, so you always do for others whatever you can.’ And she’s been right.”
The couple has a special focus on health services, with one of Susan’s favorite charities being K9s For Warriors, a group that trains shelter dogs to assist military veterans. Their own beloved pup, a golden retriever named Ruthie, mothered a litter of eight puppies that all became service dogs. But they are especially excited about the growth and enhancements taking place at JMC.
“We need a world-class facility in the Jupiter area, and Jupiter Medical Center is well on its way to being just that,” says Bill. “They have a wonderful board, and [president and CEO] Amit Rastogi is a great leader. The quality of care is first-class. They’re on a mission and they know what it is.”
Susan praises the quality of the hospital’s team members at every level, including the volunteers. “They’re all so helpful and impressive.”
The Ryans see the Healing Terrace as the first step in their ongoing support of Jupiter Medical Center. “We think there’s more opportunity down the road for giving here,” says Bill. “We’re blessed that we’re able to do it and continue to do it.”