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Four Kidney Transplants

 

On this date in 1967, the Bismarck Tribune announce the astonishing news that four young men from western North Dakota had received successful kidney transplants that year. What made it even more astonishing was that only one other person from western North Dakota had received a kidney transplant before, in 1964. 

In 1967 successful kidney transplants were still relatively new. At that time there were only ten kidney transplant centers in the United States, and about 500 successful transplants had been performed. The first successful kidney transplant ever, between identical twins, had only been performed thirteen years previously, in 1954. However, kidney transplants were not very successful until 1963 when a new drug protocol was created to suppress the immune system.

The western North Dakotan who received a successful kidney transplant in 1964 was ten-year-old Vivian Weisser. She first received a kidney from her father, but it failed. Six weeks later she had a transplant from an anonymous donor who died six hours before the surgery. She lived until age 55, dying in 2010.

Vivian, and the four young men who got kidney transplants in 1967, had their operations at the University of Minnesota Hospital. Twenty-six-year-old David Cassezza of Richardton received his brother’s kidney. David lived until he was 38, dying in 1980. Twenty-year-old Eugene McLellan of Mandan received his father’s kidney. He lived to be 50, dying in 1998. Twenty-two-year-old Curtis Olson of Regent also received his father’s kidney. He lived to be 71, dying in 2017. Sixteen-year-old Ray Finck of Burt received his twin brother’s kidney. Sadly, he only lived another ten years, dying in 1977 at age 25.

These five young western North Dakotans owed their extra years to a relatively new breakthrough in medical science. The kidney was the first organ to be successfully transplanted, in 1954. The first successful liver transplant came in 1967, with heart and pancreas in 1968, and lungs in 1983.     

Dakota Datebook by Trista Raezer-Stursa

Sources:

“Curtis J. Olson,” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/182583106/curtis-j-olson accessed November 12, 2020.

“David Cassezza,” The Bismarck Tribune, Bismarck, North Dakota, June 5, 1980, pg. 10.

“Eugene McLellan,” The Bismarck Tribune, Bismarck, North Dakota, April 30, 1998, pg. 9.

“History of Transplantation,” United Netwrok for Organ Sharing. https://unos.org/transplant/history/ accessed November 12, 2020.

“Ray Dean Finck, Mott Resident,” The Bismarck Tribune, Bismarck, North Dakota, June 8, 1977, pg. 23.

Barker, Clyde F. and James F. Markmann. “Historical Overview of Transplantation,” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine. Vol. 3 No. 4, April 2013. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3684003/ 

Middaugh, Gen. “1968 New Year Dawns Brighter for Four Young North Dakotas,” The Bismarck Tribune, Bismarck, North Dakota, December 28, 1967, pg. 5.

Vivian Mae Weisser-Klos,” East Bay Times. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/eastbaytimes/obituary.aspx?n=vivian-mae-weisser-klos&pid=145583520&fhid=2486 accessed November 12, 2020.

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