A father-of-seven who has a congestive heart condition missed the opportunity for a life-saving heart transplant after his flight kept on getting canceled due to the blizzard.
57-year-old Patrick Holland from Alaska received a call from the University of Washington Medical Center on December 22 and was told the good news about a donor match.
But after several flights to the heart institute in Seattle were canceled, he missed out on the surgery.
In an interview with CNN, Holland broke down in tears as he said: “Terrifying news to hear that I was going to get a transplant, to be honest with you. I was terrified. And then I was excited.”
He said that he and his brother rushed to the airport to catch a flight as he only had eight hours to get to the hospital.
But when they arrived, they say that the flight was canceled because of the extreme weather conditions.
“I started to panic and my worst fears were overwhelming me,” he expressed.
“Because when you hear that, you’re like, there’s somebody donating a heart and I don’t imagine they can wait that long. Because the longer it waits, the longer the tissue decomposes,” Holland went on.
He also explained that the airline staff “jumped through hoops to get me there” but many other flights were also canceled.
“I know I’ve lost it, I know I have.”
Holland said he received a call from the transplant coordinator to tell him that the heart was given to someone else.
“I think I cried more that day than I have in my life and had exerted every emotion that I’d never had,” he said.
Even though he was devastated by the news, he was trying to stay positive and said that someone else was given a Christmas miracle and he got to return home and spend the holiday season with his family.
“We aim to be more prepared for the second call,” he said. “The first one came in two-and-a-half weeks. The next one could come any time, or it could be weeks or months out.”
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