New Heart Makes It a Very Good Friday for Boy, 13

--A 13-year-old boy was within hours of death when a donor heart was found and a transplant made possible an Easter gift of life. Robert Kirschbaum, who was born with a heart defect, was in critical but stable condition after receiving the heart in a six-hour operation at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. “We came within hours of losing him,” said Dr. Greg Smith, one of three surgeons who took part in the operation. Doctors conducted a desperate, nationwide search for a donor heart when Robert’s condition worsened dramatically last week. On Friday, they received word from an organization that distributes donated organs that a heart had been found. Dan Kirschbaum, Robert’s father, said he had not realized what day Friday was until his son’s pediatrician, Dr. Linda Addonizio, came into Robert’s room and said, “We have a heart.” “It was then that I realized it was Good Friday,” he said. “It’s pretty special that the heart came at Easter time.”

--They needed complicated maps, sophisticated strategy and a lot of stamina, but victory was sweet for 14,000 children in Homer, Ga., who searched for 72,000 eggs in an egg-hunting extravaganza certified in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest Easter celebration. About 40,000 candy eggs were also tucked away on the 40 acres of pastureland where the Easter treats are hidden. Herbert and Betty Garrison, sponsors of the event, used 40 wash pots to boil the eggs and about 12 stainless-steel boilers to hold the dyes. The Garrisons began the egg hunt 27 years ago, when their four children were disappointed because there were no Easter egg hunts at school. “It’s a lot of work, but also enjoyable,” Betty Garrison said. “We celebrate Easter on a bigger scale than Christmas, because it makes everyone equal--kids don’t have to worry about that one getting more toys. They all just come here looking for eggs.”

--Soviet schoolgirl Katerina Lycheva proclaimed the Johnson Space Center “as impressive as the (space) exhibition in Moscow” during a private tour of the Houston center. But much of the rest of her weekend schedule was scrapped so that the 11-year-old peace emissary could get some rest. Katerina’s Houston visit was the fourth stop of her U.S. tour to commemorate the 1983 visit to the Soviet Union of Samantha Smith, the Maine schoolgirl who died last year in a plane crash.