VENTURA : Transplant Patient to Swim in Race

Three years after receiving a new heart, Ventura resident Carol Furst will compete this weekend in a swimming race near the medical center where she underwent a transplant operation.

Furst is one of about 800 transplant recipients who will participate in the 1992 U.S. Transplant Games scheduled Thursday through Sunday at UCLA. As one of the oldest participants, she plans to swim the 50-yard freestyle against competitors 45 years and up, with her husband, Ralph, cheering her on.

“I’m anxious,” said Furst, who will turn 70 in October. “I’m going to do the best I can. Ralph says, ‘You’re gonna win, you’re gonna win,’ but I don’t care about winning. It’s important to me to participate. And to be physically able to is a big thrill.”

Furst’s life changed forever on April 29, 1989, when she received a heart donated from a 24-year-old man who was killed in a vehicular accident near Riverside. At the time of her surgery, she was the oldest patient in the United States to undergo a heart transplant operation, according to UCLA Medical Center officials.

Before the operation, her heart was pumping at only 10% of its usual power, she was dependent on intravenous drugs and surviving with the help of a pacemaker. Now, Furst keeps active

playing golf once a week, volunteering for a senior walking program, tending to the flowers at Buenaventura Golf Course and, along with her husband, serving as a deacon at Community Presbyterian Church in Ventura.

“It just seems like, since her heart transplant, we’re starting to live more,” Ralph Furst said. “We’re doing things that the average person our age wouldn’t do, even in good health.”

The Olympic-style event, presented by the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California, is both a celebration of life and an opportunity to raise awareness about organ donations, said Lynn Kanter Moltz, president of the organization’s Ventura County chapter.

“Everybody who’s participating has had a major organ transplant. I think there is a camaraderie because they have been on the edge of existence,” said Moltz, who herself is awaiting a kidney transplant.

About a dozen Ventura County residents will compete in a variety of contests, accompanied by about 75 local volunteers who will help out at the event.

“I don’t expect to win,” Furst said. “I can’t swim against 45-year-olds. I just want to be involved.”