With his heart failing from a deadly viral infection, Kansas high school football player Tyler Groom waited nervously inside an Oklahoma City hospital's operating room.
He was scheduled to receive two cardiac-assist devices that could keep him alive for a short time longer.
But on Aug. 19, just as Integris Baptist Medical Center physician Dr. James Long brought a scalpel to Groom's chest to make the incision, the operating room doors flew open.
Transplant cardiologist Dr. Doug Horstmanshoff burst in. A donor heart had just been located. Groom's life could be saved.
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