Luke's Story

Luke
Age 11
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
Double-Lung Transplant

Luke was so anxious to begin life that he arrived 14 weeks early. He continues to do things in a non-traditional way, including attending a Pittsburgh Pirates game wearing a surgical mask and carrying his favorite blue blanket.

Luke loves baseball and after a double lung transplant in August 2010, to overcome interstitial lung disease, he’s now able to play his favorite sport. At 10 years old Luke was able to experience the life he sought. He can exercise on a treadmill and even run to first base on his baseball team for kids with special needs—and without an oxygen tank.

Luke knows his quality of life didn’t come without cost. Realizing his new lungs came from another child he told his mom, “I hope the surgeons left a little piece of lung in the child they took them from, so he could breathe in heaven.”