Garn’s Kidney Transplanted to His Daughter

Surgeons today successfully transplanted Sen. Jake Garn’s kidney into his 27-year-old daughter during a lengthy operation to reverse progressive kidney failure.

“Everything went well,” Mary Thiriot, an aide to Garn, said after the side-by-side operations that took about six hours.

“I am very happy and proud to be the donor,” the Utah Republican said as he entered Georgetown University Hospital. “Her mother carried her for nine months, and I am honored to give her part of me.”

Garn, 53, interrupted his reelection campaign to check into the hospital Tuesday.

The chief surgeon, Dr. Baird Helfrich, termed the operation “uneventful.”

Diabetic Condition

Garn’s operation, called a nephrectomy, was needed because his daughter, Susan Rhae Garn Horne, has suffered since childhood from a diabetic condition.

Laurie Snow, the senator’s press secretary, said hospital personnel indicated that Garn will be in the hospital a week to 10 days, followed by another two weeks of recuperation.

“But my guess is that, knowing Sen. Garn, he’ll want to shorten that if he can,” Snow said.

She said it is uncertain whether Garn will miss the rest of the congressional session, which is scheduled to end Oct. 3.

Garn, a retired Navy pilot and the only senator to have ridden on a space shuttle, is chairman of the Banking Committee and of the Appropriations subcommittee that has oversight of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was aboard the shuttle Discovery in April, 1985.

Thiriot said Garn’s daughter was conscious when she checked into the hospital but added that her condition had deteriorated. She said Horne was not a candidate for dialysis, a method of treating kidney failure, and had no other option but a transplant.