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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