2-Year-Old Boy’s Condition Critical After Transplant

A 2-year-old Hawaiian boy who underwent a heart transplant was listed in extremely critical condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center on Sunday, suffering complications caused by nine days on a heart-lung machine before the surgery, a spokesman said.

Jason Jennette’s 5 1/2-hour heart transplant, which began at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, went smoothly, said the medical center’s spokesman, Dick Schaefer. But Jason’s lungs have experienced swelling and bleeding, placing him in “extremely critical” condition, Schaefer said.

“The surgery went very well; the heart is working well and pumping strong,” he said. “The problem is his lungs.”

Jason has been hooked to a heart-lung bypass machine since May 29, a day before he left Pepeekeo, Hawaii on a Coast Guard cargo plane with a nine-member medical team from Children’s Hospital of Orange County. He was kept in that hospital, located in the city of Orange, until a donor heart was found Saturday and he was transferred to Loma Linda for the surgery.

A regular commercial flight could not accommodate the bypass machine, which was developed by the hospital in the 1970s to take the place of an infant’s heart and lungs, taking stress off weakened organs. The machine pumps oxygen into the blood.

Jason’s parents could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The boy was born with a congenital heart defect, a dime-size hole between two chambers of his heart. The disease afflicts one in 6,000 infants.

With his heart slowly deteriorating, Jason was flown to California because heart transplants are not available in Hawaii. There had been signs before the transplant “that (Jason’s) lungs had been damaged, but we didn’t realize how badly until after surgery,” Schaefer said.

Doctors decided to press on with the surgery because they deemed it was the child’s best chance to survive, he added.