New-Heart Recipient Dies

Donald L. Kaminski, 43, the world's second longest living heart transplant recipiënt who received his new heart on Dec. 2, 1968, at University Hospital, died Monday afternoon in Alpena Kaminski was pronounced dead on arrival at Alpena General Hospital where he was taken after suffering a seizure at the home of his mother, Mrs. Matt (Delia) Storeback while packing for a trip to Ann Arbor. Released from University Hospital on May 1 after being hospitalized for congestive heart failure, he had phoned Dr. Marvin M. Kirsh, a member of his heart transplant team, early Monday to say he was not feeling well and was told to return to the hospital, according to a U-M spokesman. However, the five-hour and six-minute 1968 operation at University Hospital by a team headed by Dr. Donald B. Kahn in which Kaminski received the heart of Robert J. Pushman, 22, of Fenton, had given him nearly four-and-a-half years of active life he otherwise would not have had. f Ñear death at the time of the surgery, he had been deprived of the active outdoor Ufe of hunting and fishing he had loved so much in his youth because of degenerative heart disease which made every movement an effort. I Following surgery, Kaminski made uj for lost time hunting, fishing, flying airplanes, painting landscapes, attending horse races and serving as sales Tepresentative for three firms. ín 1971, he formed a partnership to opérate the Madison Marine, a factory outlet boat sales and service in Madison Heights, Mich., which curtailed his extensive traveling around the state. Kaminski's optimistic attitude, outgoing and pleasant personality and the gusto with which he pursued his new Ufe as sportsman and businessman, captured the hearts of reporters and resulted in numerous newspaper articles in the years following the transplant. It gavëTLaminski a lame he probaDiy would never have otherwise achieved. I Friends said the Alpena man deeply I cherished this newfound recognition and I that it greatly buoyed nis spirits. Kaminski was Michigan' s second heart transplant recipiënt, and one of five ' tients to receive new hearts at University Hospital in surgery performed by a team headed by Dr. Kahn, former U-M associate professor of surgery, before Kahn left to become professor and head of thoracic surgery at the University of Wisconsin in December, 1970. The other Michigan heart transplant recipients all preceded Kaminski in death. The only person to receive a new heart who has lived longer than the Alpena man is Indianapolis school teacher Louis Russell, who underwent heart transplant suregery on Aug. 24, 1968, and is still alive and active. Kaminski's heart donor was a senior at Central Michigan University and an athlete who was fatally injured in a Flint automobile accident on Dec. 1, 1968. Survivors include his mother, two daughters, Mrs. Earl (Linda) Griffith of Belleville and Mrs. Douglas (Mary) Murray of Ypsilanti; two sons, Larry of Ypsilanti and Gary of Belleville; five grandchildren, and a sister, Mrs. James Babcock Martelyn of Alpena.