The judge in charge of D.C. Superior Court recently returned to work after a life-saving heart transplant.
Almost three years ago, Judge Lee Satterfield suffered a stroke he initially thought was a bad headache. He tried to ignore it, but his colleagues ignored him and called 911. Within a few months, he learned his heart was failing and doctors installed a heart pump to keep him alive.
"I was in the hospital for three months," Satterfield said. "I was sort of intubated and in sort of an induced coma for 10 days after the surgery because I could not breathe on my own, which were horrific days for my spouse, who was there the entire time and really thought I was going to pass,” Satterfield said. “She just recently told me she was planning my memorial service."
The judge survived returned to work with an artificial heart pump and a battery pack he had to wear all the time. That ventricular assist device (VAD) kept him going for a couple more years until the clock ran out on that option, too.
“He was failing,” said Dr. Linda Bogar, a cardiac surgeon at Inova Fairfax Hospital. “Even though we had the VAD in, the right side of his heart was starting to fail.”
Last October, Satterfield’s only hope was the hospital -- check in and hope a donor heart would become available while he was still alive. He couldn’t believe what happened that first night in the hospital.
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"The nurse ran in the room with the cellphone saying my doctor was on the other line, and I took the phone and started talking to the doctor and he told me he had a heart," Satterfield said.
Doctors performed the transplant surgery over 11 hours the next day.
“It’s the most amazing surgery that we do,” the doctor said. “In his particular case and in people with VADs, it’s a little more challenging, because we’ve already been in the patient’s chest once and they develop scar tissue, so we have to back in through that same incision, take the VAD out and then take this new heart and sew it in and watch it as it awakens. And it’s amazing. Every single time, it’s a miracle.”
"Once you find out that it is actually there, it's kind of unbelievable and overwhelming that someone you don't know and doesn’t know you had to die for you to survive and get their heart," Satterfield said.
Afterward, doctors told him he came close to not making it.
“I remember my medical people saying, ‘You got it in the nick of time,’" he said.
Satterfield, who is serving his second term as chief judge is grateful to continue his long career in public service and wants to raise awareness about organ donation. Almost two dozen people die every day waiting for a heart transplant:
The judge doesn’t know anything about the donor whose heart is in his chest now -- not the gender, age or where the person lived. But he is curious and said he will write that person's family a letter. It will be their choice whether to respond.
