Buena Park Teen Who Needed New Heart, Lung Dies

Noemi Serrano, whose smile won the hearts of many Buena Park residents who donated money so she might receive a heart and lung transplant, died Monday before a donor could be found.

Family members said Noemi, 18, was admitted at Humana Hospital-West in Anaheim last Thursday after she experienced shortness of breath. She was reported in stable condition until 11:30 p.m. Monday when she died.

“It looked like she would be fine,” said Buena Park Fire Capt. Tom Harhay, who spearheaded a fund-raising drive for the young woman. “But her condition rapidly deteriorated.”

A rosary is planned for Noemi on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Renaker-Klockgether Mortuary Chapel, 7651 Commonwealth Ave., Buena Park. The funeral will be 9:30 a.m. Friday at St. Pius V Catholic Church at 7691 Orangethorpe Ave. in Buena Park. The burial will follow at Loma Vista Cemetery in Fullerton.

After the fund-raising effort began in November, it took the Buena Park Firemen’s Assn. only one month to raise $25,000, the amount needed to place the teen-ager on a transplant list at Stanford and UCLA medical centers. The goal of the fund-raising effort was to collect $100,000, the estimated amount needed for the operation.

The Noemi Serrano Trust had collected $48,079.32 as of Tuesday.

Officials said part of the money will be used to pay for Noemi’s funeral expenses and medical bills. Her family was unable to pay for them.

Noemi discovered that she had pulmonary hypertension in 1987, and doctors said her blood pressure was dangerously high. They said she would have to have a heart and lung transplant if she hoped for a normal life.

“I just couldn’t walk around and do things like everyone else,” she said in an interview. “At first, I thought I was just lazy, and then I remembered that a few months before that I was really getting tired in physical education and when I walked to school.”

But her friends said Noemi always had a smile, optimism, exuberance, even in the face of her illness.