Nurse steps in to make heart transplant a reality for patient

A nurse holds a red heart.
(Image credit: iStock)

When Lori Wood, a nurse at Piedmont Newnan Hospital in Georgia, found out last December that one of her patients was removed from the heart transplant list, she knew she had to do whatever it took to get him back on it.

Jonathan Pinkard, 27, has autism, and was removed from the list because he didn't have anyone to take care of him after the surgery. He needed a person to drive him to appointments and ensure that he took his anti-rejection medications, but his mother was in a rehab facility and unable to help. Wood decided to ask Pinkard if she could become his legal guardian. "It was a no-brainer," she told Today. "He would have died without the transplant."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.