‘Courageous’ Fight Ends as Heart Patient Headding Dies

Scott Headding, the amateur musician who received two heart transplants at UCI Medical Center, died Wednesday after what his surgeon called “a very courageous” battle. He was 26.

Headding, of Huntington Beach, became Orange County’s first heart transplant recipient in April when he received the heart of a Marine sergeant who was killed in a fight in Fullerton. But complications from a second heart transplant earlier this month caused “multiorgan failure and cardiopulmonary failure,” UCI Medical Center spokeswoman Elaine Beno said.

Dr. Richard Ott, who heads UCI’s heart transplant program, was with Headding and his family when he died at 6:18 p.m., Beno said.

“Scott died after fighting a very courageous battle,” Ott said. “Despite our loss, we can take strength in his courage. He brought an entire institution together. We lost a patient and a good friend.”

Organs Damaged

Since Friday, Headding had been listed in extremely critical condition as his liver and kidneys began to fail. Both organs were extensively damaged by centrifugal-assist pumps implanted along with his new heart Aug. 9.

Ott said earlier that he believed much of that damage could have been avoided if the Medical Center had received approval to use state-of-the-art pneumatic pumps, instead of the centrifugal ones, to help the new heart pump blood.

But only 19 hospitals in the country have been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the pneumatic pumps. UC San Diego, a major transplant center, is the only hospital in Southern California authorized to use the pneumatic pump.

“The same devices that have salvaged his life have threatened his life,” Ott said. “I have difficulty understanding his capacity to survive. He has already beaten insurmountable odds.”

Headding underwent his second heart transplant after it was discovered that the first heart, taken from Marine Staff Sgt. Richard William Bottjer, had an abnormally thick-walled left chamber.

Bottjer, a 30-year-old flight information specialist based at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and living in Placentia, died of injuries suffered in a brawl with Cal State Fullerton football players outside a Fullerton bar in early April.

Although the Marine could have lived a healthy life with the heart, Headding’s system was unable to compensate for the abnormality. That caused the heart’s right chamber to fail and forced the second heart transplant. The identity of the second heart donor was not made public.

Without the first heart transplant, doctors had given Headding, who suffers from a degenerative disorder called cardiomyopathy, only a 10% chance of survival at the time of the April 8 transplant surgery.

Despite the seriousness of his illness, Headding won the admiration and friendship of the UCI Medical Center staff with a personality that was almost unfailingly optimistic.

“He was a very special patient,” Beno said, recalling how Headding would frequently play his guitar and entertain his nurses with stories.

When his condition began to deteriorate last week, his family--parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters--were at his bedside nearly around the clock.

During an interview with The Times at the hospital in April, Headding said, “I hope to live until I’m killed by an RTD bus, when I’m 85--at least.”