LI dad celebrating special Father's Day after 17-year-old son gets life-saving heart transplant
LONG ISLAND (WABC) -- This Father's Day will be extra special for a dad on Long Island after his son received a life-saving heart transplant.
17-year-old Justin Cauthen received a heart transplant four years after his mom died from heart issues.
"I would have done whatever it is I had to do to maintain this young man to be living," Jamal Cauthen, Justin's father, said.
Jamal Cauthen waited and worried while his teenage son was taken to Cohen Children's Medical Center back in early March.
"Without a heart transplant, Justin would not have survived," Dr. Jake Kleinmahon of Cohen's said.
Fortunately, timing and fate were on their side.
"I actually carried the organ down the hallway and just the feeling of knowing this would give Justin life was incredible," Kleinmahon said.
On March 28, Justin became the very first pediatric heart transplant patient on Long Island.
It was a momentous day for the whole medical team, but for Justin's father, who lost his wife to a sudden cardiac event only three years ago, it meant so much more.
"I began to reflect on if I'm going to lose him as if I lost my wife," Cauthen said.
"I was like, 'Is this real? Is this really how it ends?" Cauthen said.
Dr. Kleinmahon said: "I'm a father myself when I think about taking care of my patients, I think about them as my own children."
Forty to 50 children each year in New York State need a heart transplant. Last year, before this program began, Cohen had to send 13 children elsewhere.
"This new heart feels amazing, I feel stronger," Justin Cauthen said.
It's the best Father's Day gift Jamal could have imagined.
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