TOPSHOT - Cardiovascular surgeon Juan Esteban de Villarreal prepares a donor's heart to be implanted in a patient, at an operating theatre in Puerta de Hierro University Hospital in Majadahonda, near Madrid, . - For a time-critical procedure that is heavily reliant on intensive care, the Covid pandemic and its explosion of desperately-ill patients has thrown up a barrage of complexities which Spain's world leading organ transplant experts have been forced to surmount. (Photo by JAVIER SORIANO / AFP) / THIS PICTURE MUST BE PUBLISHED UNDATED AT THE REQUEST OF THE HOSPITAL - TO GO WITH AFP STORY "For transplants, Covid complicates the race against time" by MARIE GIFFARD (Photo by JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images)
An Alaskan father of seven missed a lifesaving opportunity for a heart transplant after his flight was canceled due to the historic and deadly blizzard that’s plagued the U.S. in recent weeks.
The 56-year-old, who is currently battling congestive heart failure, was admittedly “terrified” when he first heard the news, but quickly turned to excitement shortly thereafter.
Holland was given an 8-hour window to fly to Seattle for the heart transplant, and rushed to the airport in Fairbanks for an overnight flight, CNN reports.
But when he arrived at the airport, he was greeted with the news that his flight was canceled due to the weather.
Employees at Alaska Airlines attempted to place him on the next flight out, but that too had to be rerouted mid-flight – a fact Holland only learned upon the plane landing in Anchorage.
He ultimately missed the 8-hour window, and the heart was given to someone else, according to the outlet.
Holland says he “cried more that day than I have in my (entire) life” upon hearing the news, but found solace in the fact that “there’s going to be a family that is saving someone (else’s)” family member.
“I think I cried more that day than I have in my life, and exerted every emotion that I’ve never had. To get out of that funk, I immediately said, ‘Thank God, there’s going to be a family that is saving someone’s dad, saving someone’s brother, saving someone’s, someone’s uncle, you know,'” Holland told King 5.
The father of seven says he’ll stay in Seattle for the time being in hopes that another heart will become available for transplant.
Meanwhile, across the country, a Buffalo nurse’s heartbreaking final text messages claim emergency crews didn’t “give a f***” about rescuing her during the historic upstate New York blizzard before dying, as the death toll continues to climb to 34, The Shade Room previously reported.
Anndel Taylor wrote she was getting increasingly “livid” as she waited upwards of 30 hours in her car before likely dying of carbon monoxide poisoning, her family said per a previous Shade Room report.
Over 60 people total are dead across the U.S., with 34 people killed in the hardest-hit area of Erie County, New York, where the city of Buffalo received a whopping 50+ inches of snow, according to The Independent.
