Former VP Cheney: Heart Transplant ‘Unbelievable’ Gift
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File photo. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney expressed his gratitude Monday to the family that donated the organ he received during a heart transplant at the end of March.
“It’s the kind of gift that’s unbelievable,” Cheney said, speaking at length to student interns at the Washington Center, which broadcast on CSPAN. Despite the recent surgery, Cheney was alert and engaged, though his voice was seemed a bit huskier than usual.
Cheney was released from Fairfax Hospital in Virginia April 3. He said following the surgery his health is the best it has been in a long time.
Cheney said he was “very, very fortunate to receive” the heart. He emphasized that when one person becomes a donor, the recovered organs can “help several people, not just one…eight or 10 people who benefit.”
The New York Organ Donor Network says one organ donor can “save up to eight lives” and donating tissues and corneas can help “up to 50 people.”
Cheney said he would “encourage people to participate” in the organ donor program, but he said, “that’s a personal decision, of course.”
Cheney himself is an organ donor, saying his license has a red heart to indicate that.
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