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SALT LAKE CITY — Mary Rizzuto still remembers boarding a two-engine plane in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1990, "scared to death" and headed for Salt Lake City.
"My cardiologist said it would take a miracle," she said.
Rizzuto, whose heart was failing rapidly, found that miracle at the University of Utah — one of a handful of hospitals in the U.S. that performed heart transplants in the '90s.
Thirty years and 1,311 heart transplants later, the Utah Transplant Affiliated Hospitals Cardiac Transplant Program celebrated its anniversary Friday by inviting Rizzuto and other patients to talk about how the program changed their lives.
The program is a collaboration between four Salt Lake hospitals — Intermountain Medical Center, Primary Children's Hospital, University Hospital and the George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center — that came together to start a heart transplant program that now boasts one-year, five-year and 10-year survival rates above national averages.
Patient Alyson Gamble said the program gave her two new leases on life after she got the flu in her eighth month of pregnancy in 2007.
As Gamble's heart function began to decline, doctors pumped 40 pounds of fluid out of her body and stabilized her long enough to deliver her son before she crashed on the operating table.
A moment she had waited for her entire life "was falling apart right before our eyes," she said.
Gamble and the baby survived, but the irreparable damage to her heart meant she had to get a heart transplant in 2007. After her body rejected it, Gamble received another one in 2011.
The heart transplant was "the biggest gift of my life," Gamble said. But she never stopped thinking about who the donor might have been.
The 26-year-old girl whose heart now throbbed in Gamble's chest had graduated at the top of her class in law school and died in Park City after being hit by two cars, Gamble later found out.
The girl's family later reached out to Gamble and eventually flew from Paraguay to visit her.
That trip, Gamble said, was powerful for both families.
Over the years, the surgeons at the UTAH Cardiac Transplant Program have performed transplants on babies as small as 10 pounds and on adults now in their 80s.
The program continues to perform 10 to 12 pediatric heart transplants a year.
Alex Homer, a 9-year-old boy who was born with a congenital heart defect, had four open-heart surgeries before receiving his heart transplant at 7 years old.
"I was really excited and super happy," Alex said Friday, standing on a stool behind a podium and reading his speech off of index cards.
Before his transplant, Alex's heart was failing fast, said dad Jeff Homer. He had little energy to run or play, and eventually had to stop going to school.
Now Alex has "all the energy in the world," Jeff Homer said. "More than we know what to do with sometimes."
Now Alex wants to be a biologist, forensic investigator or monster truck driver when he grows up.
"I can do everything I want now," Alex said. "I have big plans." Email: dchen@deseretnews.com Twitter: DaphneChen_
