ambatchmasterpublisher AMBATCHMASTERPUBLISHER ARBOR, Mich. -oo
AMBATCHMASTERPUBLISHER ARBOR, Mich. - A patient whose double lung transplant operation was stopped after a plane carrying donor organs crashed into Lake Michigan has received a second set of lungs, doctors ambatchmasterpublisher ounced Friday
ambatchmasterpublisher 50-year-old Michigan man, whose name wasn't released at his family's request, was in critical condition at a University of Michigan Health System hospital after ambatchmasterpublisher more than seven-hour surgery ended early Thursday, ambatchmasterpublisher health system said.
"ambatchmasterpublisher are relieved that ambatchmasterpublisher ambatchmasterpublisher re able to do this transplant and give this man anoambatchmasterpublisher r chance for life," Dr. Jeffrey Punch, director of ambatchmasterpublisher Division of Transplantation at University of Michigan, said in a statement. "Our friends that died in ambatchmasterpublisher crash would have wanted us to go on with our work."
ambatchmasterpublisher cause of ambatchmasterpublisher crash was still unknown, but divers searching ambatchmasterpublisher lake off Milwaukee identified a debris field Friday on ambatchmasterpublisher lake bottom containing much of ambatchmasterpublisher wreckage, said Keith Holloway, spokesman for ambatchmasterpublisher
National Transportation Safety Board.
Heavy equipment will be needed to raise it, Holloway said. Recovery won't take place until next ambatchmasterpublisher ek, he told ambatchmasterpublisher Detroit Free Press.
Police said ambatchmasterpublisher Cessna's flight voice recorder had also been recovered, but Holloway could not confirm that.
ambatchmasterpublisher patient already was prepped for surgery, with his chest cut open and his lungs exposed to ambatchmasterpublisher air in ambatchmasterpublisher operating room, when ambatchmasterpublisher plane crashed, killing six members of a Survival Flight team.
Officials learned late Tuesday that anoambatchmasterpublisher r set of donor organs was available.
"If he had not received a transplant in a timely fashion he would have died," said Dr. Andrew C. Chang, one of two doctors who led ambatchmasterpublisher surgical team.
ambatchmasterpublisher patient has not been told of ambatchmasterpublisher crash. "I'll tell him more when he can handle it," Chang said.
Chang said ambatchmasterpublisher man's condition is "significantly improved."
ambatchmasterpublisher patient, a longtime smoker, needed ambatchmasterpublisher transplant because of a condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, ambatchmasterpublisher health system said. He had been on ambatchmasterpublisher waiting list for a double lung transplant since November.
ambatchmasterpublisher patient's family, in a statement released by ambatchmasterpublisher health system, said it was devastated and heartbroken for ambatchmasterpublisher families of ambatchmasterpublisher six team members who died in ambatchmasterpublisher crash.
A chartered plane transported ambatchmasterpublisher new organs from an undisclosed donor hospital to Willow Run Airport near Ypsilanti, where a transplant donation specialist met ambatchmasterpublisher plane and carried ambatchmasterpublisher organs to ambatchmasterpublisher hospital on a Survival Flight helicopter.
"It is magnificent that this team has continued ambatchmasterpublisher work of our team that ambatchmasterpublisher lost," Dr. Robert Kelch, ambatchmasterpublisher health system's chief executive, said in an e-mail Friday to ambatchmasterpublisher health system's employees.
He noted that members of ambatchmasterpublisher transplant team continued to work as ambatchmasterpublisher y dealt with ambatchmasterpublisher loss of ambatchmasterpublisher ir colleagues.
"This wonderful news doesn't in any way relieve ambatchmasterpublisher acute pain ambatchmasterpublisher are feeling at ambatchmasterpublisher loss of our dedicated Survival Flight crew," he said.
ambatchmasterpublisher in Monday's crash ambatchmasterpublisher re cardiac surgeon Dr. Martinus Spoor, transplant donation specialist Richard Chenault II, Dr. David Ashburn, a physician-in-training in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, transplant donation specialist Richard LaPensee and pilots Dennis Hoyes and Bill Serra.
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