ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Gift of Life Transplant House near Mayo Clinic is an unlikely place to learn about someone's boyhood misdeeds.
“Let's just put it this way,” 73-year-old John Neuenschwander says. “I grew up with a colorful life in a small town.”
As a high school student, Neuenschwander was known to the all the officers in Fessenden, North Dakota.
“Oh, you think?” Neuenschwander says for emphasis.
Nothing too serious, Neuenschwander swears, as he mock reads his high school’s morning announcements. “’And will the following students come down to my office?’”
Consider it good background for the rest of this story.
In October, Neuenschwander, who now lives in Fargo, was transported to a Mayo operating room to receive a heart being delivered to Rochester from a hospital in the Twin Cities.
Neuenschwander's heart had been failing for years and he was running out of time. Now, a donor heart was suddenly available.
But Neuenschwander's surgeon had a concern.
For months, construction had been slowing, and even stopping, traffic on Highway 52, the route Neuenschwander's new heart would travel.
Transplant surgeon Mauricio Villavicencio wondered what might happen if the unmarked car delivering the heart got stuck in the construction zone.
“Time was of the essence,” Dr. Villavicencio says. “I was afraid to have a poor outcome, obviously.”
The surgeon picked up the phone.
The call landed with Lt. Mitch Elzen of the Minnesota State Patrol.
“It's definitely a new one for me,” Elzen says. “Time wasn't on our side. They needed the heart down there ASAP. We didn't have flight available; we didn't have — basically, we had cars.”
Seconds later, trooper Mike Pavear would get his marching orders: Pick up Neuenschwander’s new heart and start heading toward Rochester.
Soon, Pavear and Joe Groteboer, a Mayo Clinic transplant specialist escorting the heart, were heading down Highway 52 with the red lights on Pavear’s squad car activated, clearing a path through traffic.
“Speeds ranged from 80 to 100, just depending on cars and stuff,” the trooper says. “Everyone yielded and moved to the shoulder.”
Near Zumbrota, Pavear pulled off the highway to transfer his passenger and the heart to a squad car from the Rochester district of the State Patrol.
Pavear pulled from his back seat the cooler packed with ice and the human heart, shuttling it roadside to the car of trooper Quentin O’Reilly.
“We didn't talk too much,” O’Reilly says. “Just kind of handed off and on we went.”
O’Reilly continued the drive south, now with Groteboer in the backseat and the heart on the passenger seat next to the trooper.
“I looked at it a few times, you know, just looking at a big old cooler sitting there a foot away from me, thinking, ‘It's pretty surreal that it's right there,’” O’Reilly says.
Driving with lights and siren, trooper O'Reilly exited Highway 52 and headed for the Mayo Clinic emergency entrance.
There he removed the heart, which the technician quickly wheeled into the hospital.
Neuenschwander was already in the operating room, his chest open and ready to receive the precious cargo.
“They delivered my heart,” says Neuenschwander, reflectively.
It wasn't until after the surgery that he became aware of the drama playing out on Highway 52.
Neuenschwander would benefit greatly from the speedy delivery.
“As soon as I implanted the heart, it started beating very strongly,” Dr. Villavicencio says.
As surgical director of heart and lung transplantation, Dr. Villavicencio has performed 300 heart transplants.
And how many times has he enlisted the State Patrol?
“This was the first time,” he says with a smile.
Three months later, Neuenschwander is doing well. He continues his recovery at the Gift of Life Transplant House.
John’s partner, Ruth Ann Halls, sits next to him on a couch, wiping away tears. She can’t stop thinking about the troopers.
“You saved my loved one's life,” she says, referring to the troopers. “You had a part in that.”
That very day, she would get the opportunity to tell the troopers in person.
“Big day, very big day,” O’Reilly says as he exits his squad car outside the transplant house.
Neuenschwander emerges from the front door — hand extended — to meet the troopers.
“How you are doing, John?” Pavear asks.
“Wow, thank you, thank you,” Neuenschwander responds.
A few feet away, Halls struggles to contain her emotions as she takes pictures of the meeting.
“I’ve been praying for this for a long time,” she says. “I'm very thankful to these folks.”
As a teen, John Neuenschwander kept the cops jumping. Now, he stands indebted to the troopers who helped keep John pumping.
“In high school and college, you saw the reds light of the highway patrol, you went ‘Oh, God.’ Now, it’s a little different,” Neuenschwander says. “Thank God.”
Boyd Huppert is always looking for great stories to share in the Land of 10,000 Stories! Send us your suggestions by filling out this form.
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