Life after death: Heart recipients meet families of people who saved their lives
James Woods reacts while meeting the family of Demarco Ward, his heart donor. (Brad Vest/Special to The Daily Memphian)
In a tearful Valentine’s Day event, Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis brought together heart-transplant recipients and their donors’ families in what hospital officials say was possibly the largest gathering of its kind.
The hospital, which has performed 489 adult heart transplants since 1985, hosted nine heart recipients and their donors’ families at the Garrett Auditorium on Friday, Feb. 14.
Just about everyone in the auditorium was moved to tears as one by one the heart-transplant recipients met the families of their deceased donors.
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Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis Ron Childers Heart transplantAisling Mäki
Aisling Mäki covers health care, banking and finance, technology and professions. After launching her career in news two decades ago, she worked in public relations for almost a decade before returning to journalism in 2022.
As a health care reporter, she’s collaborated with The Carter Center, earned awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and won a 2024 Tennessee Press Association first-place prize for her series on discrepancies in Shelby County life expectancy by ZIP code.
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