JANUARY 25 • 2024 | 23
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rik Morganroth is lucky
to be alive. And he’s
happy to talk about it.
The 54-year-old Birmingham
resident has twice neared death’s
reach and twice exceeded its
grasp.
“It almost seems unreal,
” the
two-time heart transplant recip-
ient says. “You think, ‘Wow,
someone literally cut the heart
out of your body. You were alive
for a period of time with no
heart in your chest. And then
they put someone else’s in it and
reconnected it and it all works.
’
It’s really an incredible thing.
”

Today, Morganroth is happy
and healthy. A successful busi-
ness owner, he and his wife,
Andrea, have two adult children
— Emma and Max. He enjoys
traveling, tennis and a fine glass
of wine, and he doesn’t take his
good fortune for granted.
An active advocate for organ
donation, Morganroth recalls
going from robust University
of Michigan graduate to dire
condition literally overnight in
December 1994.
“I had never broken a bone,
never had a cavity, never been
sick in my life,
” he says. “
And

I woke up one morning just
feeling like I couldn’t catch my
breath.
”
A trip to a hospital confirmed
he had an enlarged heart that
wasn’t contracting fully or
sending insufficient blood to
his body. He was soon at the
University of Michigan hospital
in Ann Arbor where his condi-
tion rapidly declined.
A new heart was his only
chance.
“Because I was probably the
most sick person in Michigan,
I was at the top of the (trans-
plant) list,
” he says.
At the time, Morganroth’s
plight garnered significant
media coverage and an ava-
lanche of support. His parents,
Fred and Janice, plastered the
walls of his hospital room with
cards and letters wishing him
well — an act Morganroth
believes informed his caretakers
and influenced his chance for
survival.
“If they saw me as somebody
who people were rallying for
and seeing somebody who had
people who wanted me to come
home, it might increase the level
of treatment I received,
” he says.
“Instead of just being another
patient on the floor, (my par-
ents) wanted (the medical team)
to understand that the whole
world was rallying for me, and
they wanted them to do the
same.
”
Ultimately, Morganroth spent
34 days on cardiac life support
— longer than anyone in the
world had survived at that point
— before having a successful
heart transplant surgery. He was
just 25 years old.
He recovered and altered his
career path from medicine to
real estate due to his now-sup-
pressed immune system. He
married in 1998 and welcomed
children in 2001 and 2002.

SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE
All was well until a 2007 stress
test revealed his replacement

heart was damaged. Considered
terminal once again,
Morganroth, then 37, under-
went a second heart transplant
procedure and again rebounded
to his normal life. After a pair of
organ replacements, he knows
he’s a lucky man.
“Not only have I surpassed
the first one, but I’ve now been
living longer on a transplanted
heart than I have with what I
call my original heart,
” he says.
He credits not only the sur-
geons who performed each of
his transplants — Dr. Michael
Deeb and Dr. Francis Pagani,
respectively — but also the hun-
dreds of U-M staff members
who contributed to his care.
Even now, he still struggles to
accurately describe his thanks.
“I don’t know if there’s a word
I can use,
” he says. “I don’t know
that ‘gratitude’ actually meets
the threshold of how I feel
about it.
”
Likewise, Morganroth
remains indebted to the
unknown individuals who
saved his life.
“The fact that someone had
to die in order for me to survive
is a guilt factor,
” he admits, but
it’s also a motivator.
“I feel like I have an obliga-
tion to promote Gift of Life and
organ donation and to promote
the University of Michigan’s
cardiovascular center,
” he says.
“To promote everything that
happened to me as my way of
giving back, it’s the only way in
my mind I can show my grati-
tude.
”
Despite the physical and
emotional toll of his transplants,
Morganroth remains upbeat
and stresses the importance of a
positive attitude.
“I was someone who prob-
ably shouldn’t have survived,
”
he says. “I’m the type who
doesn’t focus on the negative
and doesn’t focus on the things
I can’t control. I focus on the
possibilities.
”
And now there’s a possibility

OUR COMMUNITY

Birmingham man is a testament
to organ donation after two heart
transplants.

GARY WINKELMAN
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Three Hearts
— One Life

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