Man Gets Lungs Despite Crash of Jet Carrying Transplant

Jun 08, 09:00 PM

Current Headlines: MILWAUKEE _ Her mother's lungs went down with a plane alongside six members of a University of Michigan organ transplant team.

The plan before the twin-engine Cessna nose dived into Lake Michigan was to use those lungs to save the life of a 50-year-old man awaiting a transplant in Ann Arbor, Mich.

On Friday, the donor's 31-year-old daughter, Daphne, was ecstatic to learn from a Detroit Free Press reporter that the loss of her mother's lungs wouldn't lead to a seventh casualty. The man, awaiting the transplant, received a second set of lungs.

"That's so wonderful," Daphne told the Free Press. "I was really worried about him. Everything is so surreal right now, and it's great to get that news."

Daphne's 48-year-old mother, Betty of Milwaukee, had a massive stroke June 1. By Sunday, her family agreed to remove her from a life support system and carry out Betty's wishes to donate her organs.

The Free Press is withholding the last name of Betty's family at her daughter's request while loved ones prepare for a funeral next week.

The news came as the families of the six team members mourned the loss of their loved ones. A memorial service for Dr. David Ashburn was held Friday in Ann Arbor.

The U-M team's plane crashed into Lake Michigan on Monday near the Milwaukee shoreline just after 5 p.m. while the 50-year-old unidentified man awaited surgery at University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.

Daphne said that when a donor network employee called to break the news about the plane crash, she found it almost too difficult to comprehend.

"I'm still having a hard time processing it," Daphne said Friday. "You wonder if it's all for nothing. Sometimes you just don't know why things happen. You just have to believe that God has a plan."

The Michigan man was in stable but critical condition Friday after receiving the second set of lungs.

The patient likely would have died without the transplant, said Dr. Andrew Chang, surgical director of lung transplant at U-M. A U-M team completed the seven-hour operation at 3:34 a.m. Thursday. The team was alerted at 3 a.m. Wednesday that a second set of lungs had been found.

The recipient, whose name is being withheld at the request of his family, will remain hospitalized until he can breathe on his own, Chang said. The patient was a longtime smoker with a condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. He had been on the waiting list since November.

He has an 80 percent chance of being alive a year from now, and a 40 percent to 60 percent chance of survival at five years, Chang said. He will have to take drugs for the rest of his life to make sure his body does not reject the transplant.

Dr. Jeffrey Punch, director of U-M's division of transplantation, said the surgical team was "perhaps a little more nervous than usual" doing the surgery because they "didn't want things to fall through a second time."

The man was in the operating room for three hours Monday when the staff was alerted that a plane carrying a six-member U-M Survival Flight team had crashed into Lake Michigan after takeoff.

The surgery worsened the man's condition and required him to be put on a ventilator, raising his place on national lung recipient lists, Chang said.

Although Betty's lungs didn't help save a life, her other donated organs _ liver, heart and kidneys _ have found other transplant matches. No match, however, was found for her pancreas.

Daphne said a donor network employee told her where the organs were headed, but she has already forgotten.

"I was already dealing with so much, I just didn't retain it," she said. "There was a lot of difference of opinion about whether to donate the organs."

Such disagreements are common when it comes to organ donations. Sometimes those discussions are so prolonged that the organ is no longer viable, donor experts say.

In the end, Daphne said, her stepfather was relieved to see that Betty had filled out the organ donor information on the back of her driver's license.

"Because of timing issues, the donation process had actually begun before my stepdad saw the license," she said. "It brought him peace."

Betty worked for years as a school bus driver in Milwaukee and quit her job several years ago to work as a full-time caregiver for her father, 83, and Daphne's son. She was a certified nursing assistant.

"She was such a giving person," her daughter said. "The fact that she donated her organs just shows her character. I hope other people realize how important organ donation is and follow her lead."

As Daphne continued funeral arrangements Friday, a dive team about a mile from the Milwaukee shoreline located the debris from the downed plane on the floor of Lake Michigan and will bring in equipment next week to retrieve it, a National Transportation Safety Board official said. No human remains were found Friday.

Keith Holloway, a NTSB spokesman, said divers from the Milwaukee Police Department used underwater sonar to locate the larger pieces of debris, believed to be the bulk of the wreckage.

"They really can't bring anything up because it's heavier, and they will need heavier equipment to do that," he said. "The recovery of the aircraft wreckage won't take place until some time next week."

Holloway said he wasn't sure whether the fuselage is among the debris.

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