The 3-year-old girl from Lady's Island received the organ in surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. It was donated by the family of a child with a head injury.
"Luckily, this heart is a very good match. She's doing well," said Dr. Minoo Kavarana, the transplant surgeon.
Morgan had been kept alive since last summer by a mechanical pump known as a "Berlin Heart." It's a ventricular-assist device that uses external pumps to take blood directly from the atria and pump it to the lungs and the body, thereby taking the load off the heart's ventricles. Removing the device was more difficult than usual because much scar tissue had formed around it during the six months it was in place, he said.
Morgan's father is Marine Corps Maj. Robert Porter, a fighter pilot who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn.
Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/01/27/1944074/heart-transplant-gives-ladys-island.html#storylink=cpy
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