DETROIT (AP) — The University of Michigan hospital is prepared to handle organ transplant surgeries despite losing a team of doctors and technicians in a plane crash transporting a lung for a patient, officials said.
"We're not suspending any transplant surgeries," hospital spokeswoman Krista Hopson said Wednesday. "If there was an organ that became available and matched one of our patients, we would have absolutely moved forward with that surgery."
The patient who was on the operating table for a double lung transplant when the plane went down in Lake Michigan on Monday is back on the waiting list for another donation. Hospital officials would release no information about the man other than that he was in critical condition. Dr. Jeffrey Punch said organ transplants have to be timed tightly because the health team doesn't know whether a transplant is possible until surgeons look at the organs.