Woman Dies After 5 Years on Donor Organs

Mary Gohlke, the world’s longest-surviving heart-and-lung transplant recipient, died Tuesday of internal bleeding, officials at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital said.

Gohlke, 50, of Mesa, entered the hospital in critical condition with a ruptured artery on April 24, after she fell at her home. Her condition had improved over the weekend, hospital spokeswoman Vickie Austin said.

But the patient’s condition worsened Monday night and she died at 1:05 p.m., Austin said.

Gohlke, who underwent surgery twice previously during her hospital stay, continued to bleed internally and suffered heart failure. She was returned to surgery Monday night for installation of a pacemaker.

Austin said that her heart failure was related to the injuries from the fall.

Gohlke, a former newspaper advertising executive, received the heart and lungs of a 15-year-old accident victim in March, 1981, at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif. She was the fourth person to undergo that type of surgery. The previous survival record following such a transplant was 23 days.

Doctors had said that Gohlke was dying of pulmonary hypertension before the transplant.

Gohlke, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., was married and had two sons.