Advertisement The 70-year-old heart transplant recipient from Onalaska, Wis., won a gold medal in the high jump, a silver in the 5k walk and bronze medals in the softball throw and 1,500 meter race walk in the 70-and-older division.
“The medals aren’t important, but they symbolize the memory of donors and their families,” Heili said.
This was his third U.S. Transplant Games. He won a gold medal in the high jump at the 2004 Games in Minneapolis.
“It’s an emotion-filled time,” Heili said. “You spend time with living donors and donor families. I like hearing them share their stories.
“They are the real heroes, they are remarkable people,” he said. “I never reflect on myself. At the donor recognition ceremony, it’s about paying respect to the donors and their families. I’d give up any sports event to be at this ceremony.”
This year’s Transplant Games attracted 1,400 athletes and 10,000 people for the donor recognition ceremony.
Heili went into surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospitals on New Year’s Eve 2001 and came out with a new heart on New Year’s Day 2002.
He had cardiomyopathy, a disease that damages the function and weakens the heart’s pumping power. Heili had angioplasty, a pacemaker, internal defibrillator and triple bypass heart surgery before his transplant.
Heili, a retired administrator at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, has been active promoting organ donations through an initiative by his Rotary Club and talks to various groups.
He is one of two citizens on the heart and lung policy committee for the United Network for Organ Sharing. Heili has been on the committee for 18 months and will serve another year.
“I’m involved because we need to increase awareness of the importance of organ donations, and I need to help others because I have been blessed with a new heart,” Heili said.
While he was waiting for his heart, 85,000 others were waiting for organs, Heili said.
Today, 100,000 people are waiting for organs, he added.
“We’ve not made significant strides,” Heili said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
Heili said he is in good health and will prepare for the 2010 U.S. Transplant Games in Madison.
He said one of his favorite memories at the Games was meeting a woman with five children younger than the age of 12. She had lost her husband in a bicycle accident 20 months before the Games.
Her husband’s organs could not be used for transplantation, but he was a tissue donor.
“I think the event brought some closure for her,” Heili said.
