Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 26, 1994                   TAG: 9408260077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JENNIFER LOVEN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROYAL OAK, MICH.                                 LENGTH: Medium

HER DEATH GIVES HER FATHER THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF LIFE

The youngest of his six children - an exuberant 22-year-old nursing student - had been killed in a car accident and it quickly became clear her heart could be his.

The family had little time to decide. Patti Szuber had insisted she wanted her organs donated if she died.

But her mother couldn't bear the thought of the risky surgery claiming her husband, too. Chester Szuber thought ahead to the unwanted attention the rare procedure would bring to their grieving family.

In the end it was his decision. ``It would be a joy to have Patti's heart,'' Patti's brother, Bob Szuber, remembers his frail father saying.

On Monday, Patti's heart was flown from the Tennessee hospital where she had died only hours earlier to Michigan, where it was implanted and restarted in her father.

Chester Szuber, 58, was off a breathing machine by the morning after the surgery and was in good condition Thursday, said Dr. Jeffrey Altshuler, who performed the transplant operation.

Chester Szuber is expected to leave the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak within two weeks, to lead ``essentially a normal lifestyle,'' Altshuler said.

His daughter's death on a mountain road in Tennessee came while she was on a trip with a friend before her return to nursing school.

``The day she arrived she talked to my mother and said she was having a wonderful, fantastic time,'' Bob Szuber said Thursday.

But on the night of Aug.18, the car in which she was riding went off a curvy road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park about 40 miles from Knoxville. The car hit a rock wall, careened back onto the road and rolled several times.

The driver, Todd Douglas Herbst, 24, of Royal Oak, was treated for minor injuries.

He was charged with drunken driving, possession of an open container of alcohol, driving on a suspended license and unsafe operation, said Park spokeswoman Nancy Gray.

Patti Szuber was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in ``extremely critical condition,'' Bob Szuber said. Her family rushed to Tennessee from Berkley, Mich., to sit by her side.

From the minute Patti Szuber entered the hospital, her prognosis was very poor, her brother said. By Sunday, she had been pronounced brain dead.

Patti Szuber had indicated she wanted to donate her organs, and her family concurred in that decision.

``At the time we had no idea that donation of Patti's heart to our father was even a possibility,'' Bob Szuber said.

Chester Szuber had been on the heart transplant waiting list for nearly four years. He was at the top of the list of 71 people awaiting heart transplants in Michigan, but not at the top of the national waiting list of 2,935.

Bob Szuber said the fact that his sister's heart gave their father new life is helping the family cope with the tragedy. Her liver and kidneys were donated to other recipients.

``I'm sure down the road there will be some tough times,'' he said. But he said his sister is ``the happiest little angel in heaven.''

Keywords:
FATALITY