Ohio Man Gets Life-Saving Heart Transplant On Christmas Eve
COLUMBUS, OHIO — A Clintonville man is getting his second chance, after a life-saving heart transplant on Christmas Eve.
Dan Leite, 51, says he eats right, isn’t a smoker and doesn’t drink a lot, so it didn’t make sense when his doctors told him he suffered from end stage heart failure. “After you’ve run 154 marathons, and done three Iron Man triathlons, you’re not expecting to hear the phrase ‘you’ve got chronic heart failure.'”
After his diagnoses, Leite had to wait for a heart transplant, but got the word from OSU Wexner Medical Center on Christmas Eve they’d found him a heart and he was rushed into surgery.
“To get a call on Christmas Eve that they found you a heart and then your new heart starts beating in your old body at 12:07 Christmas morning … That’s pretty special,” Leite said.
Leite welcomes a chance to meet the family of his donor, knowing the sacrifice that was made. “My heart goes out to them. I mean, they lost somebody on Christmas Eve, that gave me a second chance. We have an unbreakable bond. We did at 12:07 Christmas morning.”
Leite says doctors have warned him he’ll have to take it easy and he’s not going to be running races again anytime soon. But he says he’d love to work with the OSU Wexner Medical Center to spread the word about organ donation.
Leite’s transplant was the 25th heart transplant at OSU in 2015 — the highest number in a decade for the medical center.
Source: ABC 6