Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

U. Michigan campus in mourning for organ transplant team
By Emily Barton
Michigan Daily (U. Michigan)
06/11/2007

(U-WIRE) ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Flowers, photos, a hockey stick and a violin bow were placed inside West Side United Methodist Church on Saturday morning as about 700 people gathered to remember University of Michigan cardiac surgeon Martinus Spoor.

The attendees included extended family, friends, colleagues and members of Spoor's hockey team.

"Martin was a gentleman and a gentle man," said one of Spoor's hockey teammates. "Tonight, when we play our hockey game, none of us will be thinking about winning or losing, but about No. 14."

Spoor will always be remembered as "a wonderful man, husband, father, son, brother and surgeon," said Thijs Spoor, Spoor's younger brother, in a statement to the media.

He recalled the time his older brother won a fiddling competition by playing the fiddle while standing on his head.

"Martin was one who truly knew how to live life to the fullest," said Steven Bolling, a colleague of Spoor.

Spoor, along with physician-in-training David Ashburn, transplant specialists Richard Chenault and Richard Lapensee and Marlin Air pilots Bill Serra and Dennis Hoyes, was a part of the University's Survival Flight organ transplant team aboard the Marlin Air Cessna jet that crashed in Lake Michigan on June 4.

The team, on its way to Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti from General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, was transporting a pair of lungs for a 50-year-old man in critical condition. Five minutes into the flight, the pilot of the jet requested to return to Milwaukee due to an unspecified emergency.

Seconds later, the plane disappeared from the airport's radar and crashed into Lake Michigan about six miles from Milwaukee. No survivors where found after an extensive search by the U.S. Coast Guard. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

University President Mary Sue Coleman and Vice President of Medical Affairs Robert Kelch spoke at a press conference on June 5 about changing the aim of the mission from a rescue mission to one that would recover the victims' bodies.

"It is particularly difficult when a place of hope such as ours loses hope," Kelch said. "But that is what happened this morning when we learned that our crew was not coming home to us."

Members of Survival Flight and the transplantation program gathered on June 6 to speak to the media about the tragedy's impact on the Survival Flight Program.

"I feel strongly I have lost members of my family," said Denise Landis, manager of critical care transport for Survival Flight.

She said a team had gone on a mission just two hours after the accident and Survival Flight would continue to fully function in the wake of the tragedy

Mark Lowell, medical director of Survival Flight, spoke of the mind-set of Survival Flight team members regarding the risks their jobs present.

"We deal with risk every day," he said. "They understand it, they deal with it. It's what they do — it's their passion."

Spoor had previously gone on many organ recovery missions with a team to remove and transport organs for surgeries at the University Hospital, said Jeffrey Punch, director of the University's transplant program. He was finishing his Master's degree in clinical research and would have graduated this summer.

Recent medical school graduate Hilary Roeder worked with Spoor in the surgical intensive care unit in June 2006.

"He was one of the greatest people I worked with," she said. "He was outstanding."

She said that he was always willing to help her and her classmates, even when they called at 3 a.m. with an emergency.

Roeder said her "stomach started turning into knots," as soon as she heard about the fatal plane crash.

"My heart just sunk," she said.

Punch said Chenault had also gone on several missions, but that Lapensee and Ashburn had less experience with Survival Flight, having been in the process of completing the final weeks of their training.

Punch said Chenault was "the kind of guy everyone liked and trusted." He said Chenault was often put in charge of approaching families about donating their loved ones' organs.

"He was the go-to guy," he said.

Chenault was also the girls' cross-country and track and field coach at Fr. Gabriel Richard High School of Ann Arbor, Mich.

"I remember him teaching me how to hurdle with his dress pants, shirt and shoes on, and his doctors coat, so that every time he jumped a hurdle he looked like a superhero because his coat would fly up like a cape," said Eastern Michigan University junior Jennifer Smith, who ran cross country and track under Chenault.

Fourth-year medical student Carlan Wendler worked with Ashburn this past March in the cardiothoracic department, which specializes in chest surgeries, as part of his medical school training. He said Ashburn was hardworking and always quick to laugh.

An avid hunter, Ashburn was known to demonstrate his turkey call in the operating room, Wendler said.

"He was the kind of person we all want to be like when we grow up into doctors," he said.

Punch described Lapensee as fairly quiet and conscientious. He said Lapensee enjoyed flying and also worked as a fireman.

Fourth-year medical student Albert Kim spent part of his medical school training working with Lapensee in November 2005.

Kim said Lapensee took his job seriously and worked long hours, but he was always pleasant and easy-going.

He said Lapensee was someone who you wanted to be around and work with.

"He was really hardworking," he said.

Kim said during his first organ recovery mission Lapensee noticed him sitting in the back of the helicopter and told Kim that next time he should sit in the front so that he would be able to see.

On Kim's next flight, he said Lapensee immediately remembered him and pulled him aside so he could sit in the front of the helicopter.

"It was one of the highlights of my year," he said.

In a press conference Friday morning, Punch said another pair of lungs was successfully transplanted to the patient who was to receive the organs lost in the crash. He is still in recovery after the transplant Wednesday evening.

Lung transplant director Andrew Chang said that although the hospital treated this patient the same as any other patient, there was added anxiety for the man's recovery after last week's tragedy.

"We were all very hopeful for this gentleman," he said. "We don't want this to have happened in vain."

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