Tufts Surgeons Perform 2 Double Transplants On Same Day

BOSTON (CBS) – A rare combined series of transplants for two men on the same day, and thanks to the expertise at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, both patients are on the verge of going home. Both men needed heart and kidney transplants, and with those two organs, you can’t transplant one without the other. That’s because without a healthy heart the kidney transplant may fail and vice versa. But what makes this story so unusual is that the organs became available on the same day. So Tufts transplant teams had to go into overdrive. “I had no strength. I wasn’t able to do any of the things I used to do,” says 67-year-old David Horne. “I couldn’t walk up steps. My endurance was going down and down and down and down. I needed help,” says Monty Scott who is 47. Transplant patients David Horne (L) and Monty Scott (WBZ-TV) Both men are from Rhode Island and they met for the first time on Thursday. They’re lives intersected on February 22nd. Both men were close to death, suffering from heart and kidney failure. “Had this not come about, I really didn’t have long,” David says. Then they got phone calls from the Tufts transplant team. Not only was there a heart-kidney donor, there were two. “That was a phenomenal phone call,” Monty remembers. But the clock was ticking. To keep the donated organs viable, they had to be transplanted quickly. “To have two patients receive a combined heart...
Source: WBZ-TV - Breaking News, Weather and Sports for Boston, Worcester and New Hampshire - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Local News Syndicated Local Watch Listen double transplant Mallika Marshall Tufts Medical Center Source Type: news