Girl Willed Heart by Boy Fights Rejection

Donna Ashlock, the 15-year-old Patterson girl who received the transplanted heart of a smitten boy who “willed” her his heart after foretelling his own death, is undergoing treatment for organ rejection, officials said Wednesday.

Ashlock was hospitalized at Pacific Presbyterian Hospital here for treatment of the second rejection episode since March, doctors said.

“It’s almost standard to have some degree of rejection during the first three to six months,” said Dr. Andrew Freyer, a pediatric cardiologist. But he added that the girl’s problems “were a little out of the realm of the routine.”

The latest rejection episode was discovered last Thursday during a routine weekly test, hospital officials said.

Ashlock, suffering from a fatal malady, received the heart of high school classmate Felipe Garza, 15, who had “willed” it to her after telling his parents last December he felt he was going to die. A few days later, he suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage.

The shy, freckle-faced girl has declined to discuss her relationship with the boy, except to say that they had dated once.