At 57 years old, young grandfather Carlos Toro has just celebrated Christmas with a new heart with his family in Brooklyn (NYC).
Toro suffered a heart attack a year ago. After working more than 70 hours a week as a supermarket manager for three decades, he developed hypertension. His blood type is O negative, meaning she could only receive an organ from a donor with the same blood type.
The wait became eternal for Toro, after two canceled surgeries this year. Until finally, on September 11, she received a heart transplant in Manhattan, paving the way to now spend an unforgettable Christmas.
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Brooklyn granddad makes it home for Christmas after heart transplant ordeal
“It’s amazing to get a new life on this date because I was a witness of 9/11.” https://t.co/lPdkSQ61Ip
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 26, 2023
“It is incredible to have a new life on this date because I witnessed September 11,” Toro told Daily Newsin reference to the terrorist attacks of 2001. “My birthday is September 18, but now I have a new birthday on September 11,” added the native of Puerto Rico.
“I was working at a supermarket on Henry St. at the time and was outside when the second plane hit the building. That made me go up to the roof to take a look. I saw a couple jump, holding hands; “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said Toro, remembering the tragedy of 9/11.
Since last year he had to suffer an agonizing wait for a new heart. In early 2023 he was told twice that a donor was available, but the surgery was canceled both times. In the first instance, she found out 20 minutes before the procedure. “They had everything prepared for me and right before they came and told me that was not going to happen,” she recalled.
“Things happen for a reason. The next time I found out two hours before the surgery. I thought: ‘It is what it is.’ The head nurse came to my room that night and she started sobbing.”
Tour He eventually underwent surgery at Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital on the Upper East Side, but an additional challenge arose due to the pulmonary hypertensionwhich caused dangerously high blood pressure in the heart.
Dr. Anelechi Anyanwu was the cardiovascular surgeon who performed the transplant. And Dr. Johanna Contreras is Toro’s cardiologist.
Dr. Contreras is concerned that many New Yorkers, especially Hispanics in her own community, do not feel safe about transplants. “Most people still think that it is an experimental process and that they are not going to play with their body,” he said. “I think it’s a small mistake. In Toro’s case, it arrived very late when only 25% of his heart was working. People need to realize that the sooner they come, the sooner we can do all the testing and see if the person qualifies for a transplant.”
Toro registered as a donor a long time ago and Now he hopes to save someone’s life one day like his anonymous donor saved his.
Last month the family of FDNY firefighter William P. Moon II, who died in a work accident, was able to hear his heart beating again in the body of the man who received him.
Since January of this year, Josué López Ortega, a fifteen-year-old who was shot in the head in The Bronx (NYC), has saved at least seven lives since his tragic departure, through organ donation.
Also Wilbert Mora, young Hispanic detective who died while responding to a domestic violence call ago in 2022 in Harlem, has prolonged its life, because Five of his organs were donated, including his heart.
In the spring of 2022, the organs of Raife Milligan, a medical student run over by a drunk Hispanic man in Lower Manhattan, were donated.
For more information about organ donation in New York you can visit the Spanish page of LiveOnNY“nonprofit organization committed to helping prolong the lives of New Yorkers through organ and tissue donation, and caring for families affected by donation.”
2023-12-28 16:11:00
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