Record Online | Josh Bakan
| Jim Milano, right, umpires a 17-and-up slow-pitch softball league game at Kingston Point Park. The veteran umpire had his left ventricular assist device installed on Feb. 28, 2014, at Rochester General Hospital. Allyse Pulliam/For the Times Herald-Record |
KINGSTON — Somebody has to die for Jim Milano to live.
His son used to sleep two hours a night worrying about him. His wife visited him in the hospital constantly. He had no control over finding a heart to keep him alive. Chuck Jackson, president of the Kingston Umpires Association and a lifelong friend, visited room 734 of Rochester General Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.
All patients in the room awaited a heart transplant, their only hope to live.
New York has no shortage of patients awaiting a heart. New York holds the lowest percentage of enrolled organ donors in the U.S., according to a study published May 28 in American Journal of Transplantation. More than 123,000 Americans need lifesaving organ transplants. Twenty-one die each day waiting.
Milano, 60, expected the hospital to instantly place a heart inside him and let him get back to his life. Instead, he was hospitalized from September 2013 to March 2014. Continue reading
from Donate Life Organ and Tissue Donation Blog℠ http://ift.tt/1MCTyYH
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