A 15-year-old teenager from Maryland had a dance party right from his hospital bed about one week after he had an open-heart surgery.
Amari Hall, from Capitol Heights in Maryland, was still hooked up to tubes and cords following his successful heart transplant operation when he surprised his family with his moves right on his hospital bed. It happened only six days after the teenager went through the lifesaving surgery.
Born With Heart Defect
Amari was born with a heart defect known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition that affects normal blood flow through the heart.
By age 2, he already had three corrective heart surgeries. The surgeries held for 13 years, and Amari appeared to function well with his repaired heart but things changed last year when a cardiologist confirmed that his heart was starting to fail.
By December, Amari was admitted to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore to wait for a transplant. The young boy missed going to school and his friends during this time.
Come March, the doctors informed Amari and his family that they found a heart for his surgery. Unfortunately, further examinations revealed that the organ was not a match. The very next day though, doctors found a matching organ for the boy. Amari was wheeled into the operating room 24 hour later.
Dancing A Week After Heart Surgery
A week after the surgery, Amari's aunt, Charawn Hunter, said that his nephew was back to his cheery self. The teenager even started to dance when they put the music on.
As the boy danced while lying in hospital bed, the nurses who were taking care of him joined in. The event was captured on video which Hunter posted on Facebook. News stations later picked the video up and the video became viral.
"Good Day Facebook. I know that many of you are inspired by our Awesome Amari dancing 6 days after his heart transplant. We would like the world to see how awesome he is!! He loves LeBron but I know he's busy but please help me making his video go viral," Hunter wrote on Facebook.
Raising Awareness About Organ Donation
Hunter explained that she wanted to raise awareness about why organ donation is very important, particularly in the African-American community.
Figures from the U.S. Government Information on Organ Donation and Transplantation data sheet reveal that over 119,000 people in the United States are on the transplant waiting lists.
Despite the number of people who decide to donate their organs increasing, more organ donors are still needed to reduce the number of deaths that happen due to shortage of donors. About 22 people die every day while waiting for a transplant and one person gets added to the transplant waiting list every 10 minutes.
"Organ donation is so important," Hunter said. "I think that a lot of people are scared of organ donation."
The brave patient was released from the hospital in May, and doctors hope he can return to school by fall.
