BALTIMORE, Johns Hopkins University surgeons performed three simultaneous kidney transplants in a complex piece of medical choreography that had nurses rushing organs in labeled coolers among six operating rooms.
"We each have a piece of each other inside us," said one of the recipients.
The six synchronized operations -- three to remove the kidneys, three to implant them -- became possible after an extraordinarily lucky, six-way organ match among the patients, their friends and their families.
Dr.Montgomery called the coordinated operations "logistically a monumental experience," and described the matching of each of the three transplant patients with a healthy stranger as a "Eureka-type moment."
Montgomery said the patients had cleared the most dangerous time for transplant patients -- the first few days after an operation.
"It was really possible because these three donors desperately wanted to see their loved ones receive a kidney and were open to any possibility to make that happen," Montgomery said.
