Mexican Woman Gets Life-Saving Transplant

Latin American Herald Tribune

MONTERREY, Mexico – Doctors successfully transplanted the heart of a man who died in a motorcycle accident into a 34-year-old woman on Christmas Eve at a medical facility in Monterrey, the capital of the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, the hospital said Sunday.

A team of doctors under the supervision of specialist Hector Contreras performed the procedure at the Mexican Social Security Institute’s hospital for special surgery in the northern industrial city.

The heart belonged to a 29-year-old man who died in a motorcycle accident on Friday and was pronounced brain dead, the hospital’s public affairs office said.

Relatives agreed to donate the man’s heart, kidneys and liver to people awaiting organs.

Dr. Contreras removed the donor’s heart at a nearby hospital and the organ was taken to the cardiac institute.

A team of a dozen doctors and nurses performed the transplant surgery on Christmas Eve.

The woman’s relatives awaited the end of the operation at the hospital, praying and singing Christmas carols.

The woman is recovering at Hospital No. 34, considered one of the best cardiac hospitals in Mexico and the site of around 30 heart transplants.

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