Mt. Pleasant man needs transplant to live

TribLive | AJ Panian
Photo: Dianne and Dave Sullenberger at the couple's Mt. Pleasant home on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. A "Breakfast with Santa" fundraiser will be held Saturday in honor of Dave Sullenberger, the proceeds of which will benefit the National Foundation for Transplants. The foundation, in turn, will aid Sullenberger in his efforts to finance a double lung transplant he needs due to suffering from pulmonary fibrosis. Kelly Vernon | Mt. Pleasant Journal

There are days when the coughing jags hit Dave Sullenberger so hard and for so long that he can barely breathe.

It’s the most glaring symptom of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

“Otherwise, you can look at me and think there is nothing wrong with me,” said Sullenberger, 60, his hand resting on an oxygen tank he must constantly use. “But when I have days like that when I just can’t stop coughing, it takes everything out of me.”

In 2009, Sullenberger was diagnosed with the disease with no known cure.

Those afflicted suffer from lungs and air sacs which become scarred and stiff and unable to pass oxygen to the bloodstream, he said.

“That means everything in my body is affected by it, not just my lungs,” he said.

However, Sullenberger rarely takes a day off from his job at the Mt. Pleasant-area plant of Scottdale-based National Hydraulics Inc., the business where he has labored for more than three decades as a journeyman machinist.

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