Friends Get Organs from Same Donor - on the Same Day and at the Same Time and Place

Gordon Veldman, left, and Fred Nelis said in a news conference Monday they have formed a brotherly bond after having received organs from the same donor. (Screenshot via The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com)

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When two longtime friends from Michigan say they’re like brothers, it’s not just a euphemism for their camaraderie.

Fred Nelis, 60, of Holland, and Gordon Veldman, 67, of Pentwater, now have a genetic link that makes them as close to brothers as two men can be without actually having having started life in the same womb.

Confused? The heart beating in Nelis’ chest and the lungs now taking in air and expelling carbon dioxide in Veldman’s body came from the same organ donor.

Not only did the two men have a donor in common, their transplant surgeries occurred simultaneously.

“Same day, same time, same place,” Nelis told The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com.

“We put the heart and lungs together as a close as we can. Just for a moment. So they can be close.” – Gordon Veldman

The two men don’t know much about their donor, other than he was a 32-year-old man.

But every time they get together, “we put the heart and lungs together as close as we can,” Veldman said. “Just for a moment. So they can be close.”

Death Near for Both Men

The men talked about their life-changing surgeries at a news conference Monday at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, where the transplants were performed last June.

Nelis had been diagnosed with a idiopathic cardiomyopathy, a progressive heart disease with an unknown cause. He had been a competitive swimmer for 40 years and regularly worked out to stay in shape, but developed atrial fibrillation in May 2013 and was “on a descending path” when his name was placed on the transplant registry in 2014.

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Veldman’s doctors told him he “probably had two months left” in February 2014. He had been suffering for years from emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2007, when doctors were able to pinpoint the cause: a genetic disease called Alpha-1, which would potentially destroy his lungs.

By February 2014, his lung capacity had dwindled to 15 percent. A 10-foot walk exhausted him, his face and fingers had a purple tinge, and talking was a chore.

“The end was very near,” Veldman said.

Now, he says, “because someone said ‘yes’ ” to becoming an organ donor, “I’ve got a future. It’s as simple as that.”

Simultaneous Friends Transplants a First for Hospital

Dr. Michael Dickinson, the medical director of Spectrum’s heart and lung transplant program, said the two friends’ simultaneous transplant operations are probably a first for the program.

“It’s pretty wild,” Dickinson said. “We thought it quite a remarkable story when it happened.”

The hospital has performed 50 heart transplants since the first one in November 2010, and 34 lung transplants since February 2013, when that program began. Later that year, the hospital performed west Michigan’s first heart and lung transplant surgery, a rare medical event.

The two men didn’t realize until later they shared the same donor and that their surgeries took place on the same day, at the same time at the same place.

“Some of our friends put it together the night of the surgery ...” Veldman said.

In the nine months since their transplants, both men are doing well, doctors staid. Veldman has recovered 96 percent of his lung capacity, and Nelis is swimming four days a week.

Nelis said the most difficult part of his journey back to good health was coming to terms with realization that “somebody had to die.”

“That’s kind of a harrowing thought,” he said. “It’s kind of a deep moral dilemma. We are very fortunate that somebody was so gracious.”

That’s why Nelis presses his new heart against Veldman’s new lungs when they meet.

“We feel very strongly about the importance of those internal organs and how they support us in our endeavors,” Veldman said. “Without them we are has-beens. Memories.”

How to Become an Organ Donor

Organ, eye and tissue donors can provide a second chance at life or improved quality of life for thousands of people awaiting transplants each year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Mayo Clinic says as many as 100,000 people may be waiting for an organ transplant at any given time in the United States, partly because of myths that emergency staffs don’t work as hard to save organ donors and scary tabloid stories about ogan donors wiggling their toes after they’re declared dead.

In fact, Mayo says on its website, people who have agreed to organ donation are given more tests (at no charge to their families) to determine that they’re truly dead than are those who haven’t agreed to organ donation.

“It can be hard to think about what’s going to happen to your body after you die, let alone donating your organs and tissue,” Mayo says. “But being an organ donor is a generous and worthwhile decision that can be a lifesaver.”

If you want to become a donor, go to the Gift of Life Michigan organ and tissue donor registry in Michigan. Nationally, go to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services map and click on your state to find local resources.