Living for 2: 'Nightline' Returns to Mayo Clinic Organ Transplant Unit

ABC News | REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK By ELY BROWN and DAN LIEBERMAN
Photo: Colter Meinert (left) and Jessica Danielson (right) both spent months on the transplant waiting list at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., one of the leading transplant centers in the world, and are on their way to recovery. ABC News
It was just more than a year ago when we touched down in Rochester, Minn. to do a story on the organ transplant unit at Mayo Clinic. Before we could even check our camera mics, we got word that another plane had just landed carrying a red cooler containing a liver for 60-year-old Gordon Karels.

It's the moment more than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for. Eighteen of them die each day waiting for their organ transplant, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" tonight at 12:35 a.m. ET.

For some, getting a new, healthy organ can happen overnight. For most, the wait is much longer. Sometimes it can take years.

With the cooler in the doctor's hand, we rushed to the hospital to film its arrival and subsequent journey through the winding corridors to the operating room. After his successful transplant and rapid recovery in the days to follow, Karels and his family celebrated.
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor TODAY
In California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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