David Rozelle

Type of Donation:          Heart recipient

Age and Location:          Age 82 – Kalamazoo, MI

Donation Date:                10/15/2001

Sponsor:                              Honored by Gift of Life Michigan

DAVID’S STORY

On a very hot Sunday 35 years ago, David Rozelle suffered a major heart attack.  A friend brought him to the hospital since he was suffering chest pain.  His heart stopped as he entered the emergency room and his next memory is of a doctor apologizing for beating on his chest and for the arcing of the defibrillator as she struggled to revive him.  She told him his heart had stopped for about three minutes. So began a long journey with a damaged and failing heart that led to a heart transplant in 2001.

David returned to his profession as a university professor 10 months after his transplant, completing his 38-year career in 2007. He won three university-wide teaching excellence awards, two service awards and was a named professor when he retired.

David is very committed to treating his new heart better than he treated the first one.  After walking three miles a day to recuperate and improve his health, in 2008 he began, at age 71, to run and has medaled in five Donate Life U.S. Transplant Games and five World Transplant Games.  While his running career is ending, he is still very fit and is back to walking as his exercise of choice.

David has two causes that demand his attention, campaigning for organ donation and fighting hunger in his community.  He is the president and co-manager of Team Michigan made up of members of the Michigan transplant community who compete bi-annually in the Donate Life Transplant Games of America.  He teams with professionals from Gift of Life Michigan to raise awareness of donation among health professionals at hospitals in Kalamazoo, Michigan where he and his wife of 56 years reside. He has met his donor family who lost a 17-year-old son in an auto accident.  “My donor’s mother, in a hospital emergency room beside her dead son, with his sister decided that he should be an organ donor. Six of us are alive today because of that brave mother’s decision.  I have met my donor family and have expressed my love and gratitude.  I worry that it can never be enough.”

David works in three different food pantries in the community and co-ordinates two of them.  The volunteer co-coordinator for Gift of Life Michigan once said that she wished she had 100 volunteers like him. David has enjoyed a full, rich life because of the gift that a bereaved family gave in a time of crushing grief.  He continues to try to make that family proud.