As there is always bashing over the "fixed" headline issue, let me take here a bit of an contrarian position. In the past my titles have been changed numerous times but I slowly came around and even found it somewhat a good idea.
# I think the problem is less with Hacker News but more with the authors of the original articles who are unable to write a decent topic for a posting. If an author is unable to communicate his message in the headline, it might be better to use another source.
# The fixing effect is in my opinion positive. The click baiting title rises up in the top news, but get reversed to some boring, non descriptive headline. It hopefully gets people curious why this news is in the top X and click on it. This has the effect that they are conditioned to read not always the most "screaming" headlines but also stories with weaker headlines.
# As an overall effect, the top news stories don't look like a shouting match where the scariest story wins. Instead it features also stories that have boring headlines and more a content over headline oriented approach.
Of cause this whole argument is somewhat arbitrary in your case, where a real life is at stake.
So, would we be better off with <a href="http://www.link-to-site.com/ /> and no link text? Surely not. As someone else said, the information with a link will depend on the context/audience.
Without a title like "Aaron Winborn (Drupal developer) - Special Needs Trust donations", I read the entire original story and a few of the comments before I realised that this must be someone known in a particular programming community.
If an author is unable to communicate his message in the headline
The author is writing a title appropriate for the location the article is posted at. That context may be critical and is missing once the article winds up on HN.
The fixing effect is in my opinion positive.
I would say it is net positive, but that doesn't mean there aren't cases that are significantly negative.
The top news stories don't look like a shouting match where the scariest story wins.
This is a false dichotomy. We can have sane editing of titles that give us context without leaving shouting matches.
The problem with "sane" editing is, that it is much more difficult to enforce than just a simple - always the original headline - rule. The story here is an exception as it is a personal interest theme. But as soon as we are in more subjective terms (e.g. "writing up" the successes of a project) I can imagine many comments discussing if the spin on a headline is still okay or across the line. Plus if somebody is convinced that the original story absolutely needs the editorializing it might be better to express this not just in a headline but to write a blogpost etc on it.
# I think the problem is less with Hacker News but more with the authors of the original articles who are unable to write a decent topic for a posting. If an author is unable to communicate his message in the headline, it might be better to use another source.
# The fixing effect is in my opinion positive. The click baiting title rises up in the top news, but get reversed to some boring, non descriptive headline. It hopefully gets people curious why this news is in the top X and click on it. This has the effect that they are conditioned to read not always the most "screaming" headlines but also stories with weaker headlines.
# As an overall effect, the top news stories don't look like a shouting match where the scariest story wins. Instead it features also stories that have boring headlines and more a content over headline oriented approach.
Of cause this whole argument is somewhat arbitrary in your case, where a real life is at stake.