MIDWAY CITY : Transplant Recipient Coming Home Today

Robbie Shinn, the son of a Westminster police officer who received a heart transplant 13 days after his birth, will come home to Midway City today for the first time.

“It’s been pretty incredible. It’s been a real roller coaster,” said the relieved father, 32-year-old Charles Shinn. “The whole family is going to be coming home. We get to be home for Christmas.”

Born in June with a congenital heart disease, Robbie Shinn would have died without a transplant.

His rare B-positive blood type made finding a donor more difficult.

But on Robbie’s 12th day of life, such a donor emerged, and the baby was rushed to Loma Linda University Medical Center in San Bernardino. The baby was released from the hospital Aug. 11.

His mother, Renee, and her 10-year-old son, Vincent, have been staying in a rented apartment near the hospital.

Donations from Orange County residents, totaling $25,000, have helped finance the family’s stay in Loma Linda and will continue to fund medications for Robbie that are not covered by his insurance.

Medical expenses have been nearly $400,000, Charles Shinn said.

Much of the fund to help Robbie came from fellow police officers who converted vacation time or overtime they were owed into cash to help the Shinns.

“We didn’t have the money to run two households,” said a grateful Charles Shinn. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t meet somebody in the city who asks me how Robbie’s doing, and they don’t know me other than that they’ve seen me on television asking for a heart for my son. I’m really humbled by that.”