Patient waiting organ is "very critically ill" · 2007-06-06 10:45
No one was believed to have survived the crash of a small plane the Cessna 550 Citation that was carrying a six-member organ transplant team along with a donor organ on ice.
The team's lifesaving mission ??“ carrying unspecified organs from Milwaukee for transplant to a patient in Michigan ??“ was cut short when the plane went down Monday night in 57-degree water shortly after the pilot signaled an emergency.
The pilot had reported a problem with its trim runaway system, said John Brannen, senior air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. The system controls bank and pitch, but it wasn't clear what caused the problem, CBS News reports.
"We will piece together what we can of the wreckage," Brannen said.
Investigators also planned to look at the aircraft’s maintenance records within the next few days.
Only small parts of the plane had been found so far. Human remains have been found but haven't been identified.
According to Guardian Unlimited, the patient lay on the operating table, prepped for transplant surgery.
Now the critically ill patient could become the accident's seventh fatality.
Hospital officials and organ-donation authorities would not identify the transplant patient other than to say he was a man, and would not say what type of organ he was awaiting, citing medical privacy rules. But one of the doctors killed was a cardiac surgeon, suggesting the patient was about to get a new heart or lungs.
He was put back on the waiting list for another organ and was reported to be "very critically ill." Authorities would not comment on his chances of finding another organ in time.
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