Baby Jesse to Receive New Heart Today
Parents of a brain-dead Michigan baby said a final goodby to their son this morning and authorized the donation of his heart to 16-day-old Baby Jesse, a Southern California infant who was transferred to Loma Linda University Medical Center where he was being prepared to receive the transplant.
Jesse Dean Sepulveda, his life riding on the results of the experimental procedure, left Pasadena’s Huntington Memorial Hospital shortly after 11 a.m. and was taken in an ambulance to Loma Linda, where a surgical team waited to perform the three-hour operation.
Meanwhile, the body of Frank Edward Clemenshaw, born, like Jesse, on May 25, was flown to Norton Air Force Base for transfer to Loma Linda so that his still-strong heart could be surgically implanted in the chest of the little boy the medical center had earlier rejected as a heart-transplant candidate.
Kay Murphy, Huntington’s public relations director, said that tests would be needed and that the actual surgical procedure would not begin until mid-afternoon.
Loma Linda’s infant heart transplant specialist, Dr. Leonard Bailey, and his team that has performed four successful operations since last November were standing by, Loma Linda spokeswoman Joyce McClintock said.
A hospital infant transplant committee initially said no to Jesse, who was born with a fatal heart defect, on the grounds that his parents, unwed and young, were incapable of providing the boy with the post-operative care he would need for survival.
That decision was reversed by Loma Linda officials last week after a firestorm of publicity, though they insisted that Jesse’s parents, Jesse Sepulveda Sr., 26, and Deana Binkley, 17, surrender custody to Jesse Sr.’s parents.
Sepulveda and Binkley heard about the donor this morning while in New York taping a segment of the nationally syndicated “Phil Donahue Show” and collapsed in tears. They flew back to be at Loma Linda for the operation.
There were tears, too, at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., where Deborah Walters and Frank Clemenshaw, of Wyoming, Mich., cuddled and kissed their son one last time and then told reporters of their decision.
Frank Jr., born weighing 8 pounds, 5 ounces in an emergency Caesarean section, was placed on life-support systems after his birth but was diagnosed as brain dead last week.
His head had pressed the umbilical cord against the mother’s pelvis, shutting off the supply of oxygen to the brain, doctors explained.
Walters, 33, said she was approached by Michigan doctors to grant permission for the donation after she heard the news of the ordeal of Baby Jesse’s parents.
“I felt for them as a mother who was going to lose her child,” Walters said. “It’s a hard thing to do, to watch a baby die.”
Choking back tears, Walters added: “We feel very good about giving another child a chance. If he (Frank Jr.) has a chance to help another baby live, part of him will live on.” Earlier in the day, doctors and nurses at Huntington prepared Jesse Jr. for the operation.
