Transplant recipients team up to compete in wide array of sports
Organ transplant recipients not only can return to normal, productive lives after surgery, but quite a few also can go on to compete in rigorous athletic events.
J. T. Conti of Derby is a case in point. The 23-year-old heart transplant recipient is among 31 local organ recipients who will compete July 11 through 15 at the National Kidney Foundation U. S. Transplant Games in Pittsburgh. He will be involved in the golf competition.
“This is my third time competing,” Conti said during a kickoff dinner Tuesday in Pettibones Grille in Dunn Tire Park.
Conti won a gold medal in golf in the 2004 games, just three years after his heart transplant.
Before the surgery, he had to stop playing hockey, a game to which he had been devoted since he was 4 years old.
“Now I play hockey, I coach, I golf, I play softball. I just do regular normal activities. I’m really active,” he said.
Darlene Aymerich, family services manager for Upstate New York Transplant Services — a sponsor of the event — said the games, in part, are intended to demonstrate just how well organ transplant recipients can re-adjust.
“The games show the world that transplants work and that they can lead to a happy, normal life,” Aymerich said.
More than 200 athletes from around the country who have received organ transplants will compete in the games. The 31 local competitors range in age from age 7 to 65, said Robert Dembik, a spokesman for Team Buffalo Transplant Athletes and the recipient of a donor kidney in 1998.
Dembik said the games also aim to promote organ donation.
“There are nearly 100,000 people waiting for donated organs in the U. S., and over 500 locally,” he said.
“For someone who decides to take that valiant step [organ donation] when the time comes, they should let a family member or someone close to them know their wishes,” he added.
Holly Hahn-Baker, who underwent double lung transplant surgery in 1998, has competed in three transplant games since 2000, when she won a silver medal in the women’s doubles tennis tournament.
Hahn-Baker won a bronze medal in mixed doubles tennis in 2002.
“I was always pretty active, even before my transplant, and even when I had to carry my oxygen [tank] with me,” Hahn- Baker said. “I think [the competition] is good for us in terms of keeping the body strong.”
Team Buffalo’s athletes also will compete in track and field, table tennis, swimming and bowling.
Tanner Krist of Sardinia, who turned 7 Tuesday and is the youngest member on the team, will compete in the 50- yard dash and softball throw.
