Covid damage leading to ‘completely new category’ of organ transplants
In a year when Covid-19 shattered the pleas of so many who prayed for miracles, a Georgia man with two new lungs is among the fortunate.Mark Buchanan, of Roopville, received a double-lung transplant in October, nearly three months after Covid-19 left him hospitalized and sedated, first on a ventilator and then on the last-resort treatment known as ECMO.“They said that it had ruined my lungs,” said Buchanan, 53, who was a burly power company lineman when he fell ill. “The vent and the covid ruined ’em completely.”Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreakAt the time, only a handful of U.S. hospitals were willing to take a chance on organ transplants to treat the sickest Covid-19 patients. Too little was known about the risks of the virus and lasting damage it might cause, let alone whether such patients could survive the surgery. Buchanan was turned down at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, according to his wife, Melissa, who said doctors advised her to withdraw treatment and allow him to die peacefully.“They were telling me to end his life. I told them absolutely not,” recalled Melissa Buchanan, 49. “We all started Googling any place that would take someone who needed a lung transplant.”I
