It was a saturday night and Jared and I are just hanging out at home, he got a call about 9:00, the liver transplant team was flying to Baltimore and Jared was the student on call that night. Jared left right away to meet them at the hospital and then they were rushed to the airport to hop on a plane off to Maryland. I told him to keep me updated throughout so I knew when he was on the ground. It was exciting, and a really great experience for him. Also that night they actually scrubbed in for two surgeries, once they arrived in Maryland they got a call that there was another procurement at University of Maryland that they would be taking as well (first one was at Johns Hopkins).
The story of the first case was actually quite touching. It was a little boy only a few years old that had passed due to a head trama, several of his organs were being donated. The mother was there saying goodbye to her child that was technically still alive (to harvest the organs) which Jared said was sad to see. He said there was also a group of surgeons that were removing the childs heart, and once they took the heart out they rushed it into the next room where a little girl about the same age was waiting for this new heart that she otherwise would have died without getting. Its kind of amazing to hear a story like this and how a tragedy for one family can turn into hope and life for another.
This is Jared outside the plane that they took to Maryland
This is a pic Jared sent to me in the middle of the night. This is at University of Maryland for the second case, he said scrub in time was 5am. Also in this case Jared actually got to make the opening incision!
This is the next morning getting ready to get on the plane to come back to New York. Jared arrived back home about 10am. A short 13 hours later :-)
