One Death Provides New Life for Many

HANDS ON HIS HEART — Mirtala Garcia, right, and her children touched Sebastiao Lourenco's chest, where the heart of Mrs. Garcia's husband beats. The husband, Julio Garcia, died in March 2010.

By DENISE GRADY
NYT

Mirtala Garcia laid a hand on Sebastiao Lourenco’s chest, then pressed her ear there for a moment.

“That’s my heart,” she said. “It’s still beating for me.”

Although she had just met Mr. Lourenco, she had known his heart for a long time. It had belonged to her husband, Julio, who died from a brain hemorrhage in March 2010, at the age of 38. Mrs. Garcia donated her husband’s organs, and the family’s loss led to a second chance for Mr. Lourenco, 57.

But he was not the only one. Seven or eight other people who urgently needed transplants also received organs from Mr. Garcia, an unusually large number. (The average from organ donors is about three.) Even more unusual, his family and a group of recipients met on Wednesday in a highly emotional gathering at the Manhattan headquarters of the New York Organ Donor Network, which coordinated the transplants.

(More here.)