County’s 1st Transplant Patient Goes Home : He Got His Heart at UCI and Now It’s Time to Live

Scott Headding munched on chocolate cake, playfully tapped giant red heart-shaped balloons and kidded family members before he strode out of UCI Medical Center in Orange on Friday, just three weeks after undergoing Orange County’s first heart transplant operation.

“I never thought just being able to walk outside could be an experience in itself,” said Headding, 26, a Huntington Beach roofer and amateur musician.

Of the new lease on life his new heart has given him, Headding said playfully: “I hope to live until I’m killed by an RTD bus, when I’m 85--at least.”

Headding, who had been a virtual invalid for the past two years, suffering from congestive heart failure and arrhythmia, looked remarkably robust for someone who had only been given a 10% chance of survival before the April 8 operation.

Hasn’t Felt This Good in Years

“I haven’t felt this good in years,” said Headding, who wore a T-shirt that said: “I got my at UCI.”

His father, Gary Headding of Huntington Beach, said: “He looks great. The way he’s acting, you’d think that having a heart transplant was a piece of cake.”

And food was very much on Headding’s mind. He gleefully confessed that he had convinced one family member to smuggle a pizza into his room in his guitar case because he had tired of hospital food.

“But I won’t be able to have pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner like I used to,” he added. “I’ve got to stick to a low-fat, low-sodium diet.”

In addition to watching his diet, Headding will have to take various medications and come back to the medical center for checkups, first twice a week, then steadily decreasing over the next six months to once a month.

By following this strict regimen, Headding said he hoped to beat the five-year survival rate of about 85% of heart transplant patients.

“Who knows, with all the advances they’re making, they might find out that you don’t need hearts,” he joked.

Turning serious, Headding added: “But if I live no more than five years, it will be worth it. And it definitely will be better than the last three years.”

A more somber note was sounded by cardiac surgeon Dr. Richard Ott, director of UCI Medical Center’s heart transplant team at a news conference Friday, when he spoke about the use of unidentified patients as donors--a practice followed in Orange County’s second heart transplant, performed April 20 at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

Ott would not discuss specifics of the Hoag transplant operation, in which the heart of a brain-dead man later identified as Eleno Ullua Ramirez, 19, of Huntington Beach, was transplanted into Dr. Norton Humphreys, 58, a retired Fountain Valley family practitioner.

“It will serve everyone’s interests to leave any comments to be made to those people who are most knowledgeable--the people at Hoag,” Ott said at the news conference held to announce Headding’s release from the hospital.

But in general, Ott said he has deep reservations about using organs from unidentified donors.

“From a moral and ethical standpoint--and in terms of the impression this leaves on the public--I am not sure in my mind that this is a wise approach.”

Ott said he had never used the heart of an unidentified donor in 70 heart transplant operations he has been involved in. Yet he would not rule out doing so in the future.

‘Critical Shortage of Organs’

“There is a critical shortage of organs,” said Ott, 35, who recently was recruited from the University of Arizona at Tucson by UCI to start a heart transplant program.

“There are a lot of pressures on transplant teams,” he added. “They have a responsibility to their patient, and depending on how sick the patient is, they have to try heroic things--if those heroic things are worth it in extreme cases.

“But I think every effort should be made to identify the donor,” Ott continued. “Because it is in the interests of the individual (donor), his family and the community.”

Ott said he hoped that the Hoag controversy would not deter people from signing organ donor cards or keep families of brain-dead people from agreeing to the taking of organs.

“People have a lot of beliefs and fears when it comes to organ donations,” Ott said. “When someone is brain-dead, their organs are no longer of any use to them. But they are of great utility to their fellow man.

“I remember at Tucson some of the (staff) used to wear buttons that said: ‘Don’t take your organs to heaven because God knows that we need them here.’ ”

Gratitude to Marine’s Family

Headding’s father made a special point of noting his gratitude toward the family of the brain-dead Marine whose heart is beating in Scott Headding’s chest.

“I want to thank (Staff) Sgt. Richard Bottjer’s family for his having signed the donor card that made it possible for my son to lead a more normal life,” Gary Headding said. “I know that this probably will not mean a lot to them right now. But I pray that in time, it will.”

Bottjer, 30, died April 7 after he and a friend wound up in a fight with two Cal State Fullerton football players the previous night.

Scott Headding said Friday that as yet, he has not talked with members of Bottjer’s family. “But I’ve had a letter from a girl who works at the preschool that Sgt. Bottjer’s son attends. Through her, I hope to meet with them.”

Headding, who will have to avoid strenuous activity, will give up roofing and return to college to study computer science.

Asked what he will use his education for, Headding quipped: “Making money and making music.”