51ÊÓƵ

Frank Vignuli couldn’t be having a heart attack, could he? He wasn’t short of breath. His chest didn’t feel tight. But on the morning of Aug. 4, 2004, the 47-year-old from Wilmington, Del., didn’t feel normal. His jaw was burning, his shoulder was in pain. But he didn’t want to wake up his family. The port operations manager wasn’t in the habit of going to the doctor or asking for help about his health. (Blakemore, 2/25)

The patient in the operating room was Stanley Kareta, a 29-year-old Army captain who had agreed to donate half of his liver to his wife’s father. The older man had a liver disease so advanced that his only hope of survival was a transplant. But with about 14,000 people on the nation’s waiting list for donor livers, most of which come from deceased donors, there was little chance he would be approved for one in time. (Linden, 2/25)