Organ Transplants Race Against Time

Organ Transplants Race Against Time

WTAE Channel 4 Action News
Wed Feb 28, 8:06 PM ET

There's no doubt that organ donations save thousands of lives every year, but the process of retrieving organs and getting them to people in need in time is one intense process.

The Center for Organ Recovery and Education, or CORE, let WTAE Channel 4 Action News reporter Sheldon Ingram see firsthand what their race against the clock is like.

At this moment, nearly 100,000 people are waiting for new organs.

When organs become available, CORE must strike quickly to make them available for transplant surgery.

As Ingram tags along, he said he was reminded that someone must die so that someone else can live.

Julius Suciu was 10 years old when his intestines began dying. Doctors removed the dead organ, but his body reacted violently.

"And then at night time, I passed out and puke blood," said Suciu. "Blood was coming out of my nose and everything."

At that point, Suciu would not live beyond three years. He became a prime candidate for an intestinal transplant.

Someone needed to die so he could live.

Inside CORE's center, they have a one-track mind, which is to track down the dying and give their living organs to someone on a waiting list.

CORE said it facilitated more than 1,000 transplants last year, and each time, they're given only hours to retrieve the organ, find a match and get it to a hospital.

On one Friday morning, CORE received a call from a hospital in Kalamazoo, Mich.

A small intestine would be available for a 9-month-old baby waiting for a transplant in Pittsburgh.

Recovery coordinator Mike Devlin was first in action. He must recover the organ while he loads medical supplies.

CORE CEO Susan Stuart said doctors in Kalamazoo are confirming that the donor, a 10-month-old murder victim, is brain dead through a battery of tests.

"A patient who is brain dead does not feel any pain, because there are no cranial nerve responses," said Stuart.

Devlin leaves CORE headquarters and swings by UPMC Hospital to pick up two surgeons.

When they get to Allegheny County Airport, a private jet is waiting and within 10 minutes; we're off the ground, headed to Kalamazoo.

Dr. Kyle Soltsy, a transplant surgeon, was assisted by Dr. Ravi Mohanka.

Once in Kalamazoo, an ambulance rushes everyone to Bronson Baptist Hospital.

In the hospital, the baby's organs are kept alive with a ventilator, but the Pittsburgh doctors must wait in line.

The organs are so valuable that a team of physicians is in from New York, and because they only have four to six hours to complete their transplant, they go first. Then, the Pittsburgh team will have their chance to collect the small intestines and kidneys.

But at nightfall, bad news rises.

Soltsy and Mohanaka learn they cannot take the intestines, because they were heavily medicated and suffered low blood pressure.

So the 9-month-old waiting back in Pittsburgh will not have that life-saving transplant, at least not today.

However, the two kidneys were harvested for a 30-year-old man in Pittsburgh.

During the flight back to Pittsburgh, doctors talked about the bittersweet process.

"It'd be hard to think that you could separate yourself from what happened to this poor child," said Soltsy. "For every donor that you do, there's two lungs, a heart, a liver, a pancreas, two kidneys and an intestine that can be used."

It happened for Suciu. After 10 years, his body is just now rejecting the intestines he received, but he's still alive.

Soltsy said half of the children waiting for intestines and livers would die while on the waiting list by the end of the year.

At this hour, that 9-month-old is still waiting for an intestinal transplant.

URL http://news.yahoo.com/s/wtae/20070301/lo_wtae/11138139