Family meets recipient of relative's heart by chance at St. Louis Cardinals game

A trip to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game for Transplant Awareness Day was supposed to be a chance for a family to honor their relative, who was an organ donor.

The game took on extra meaning when they met the recipient of that relative’s heart.

Videos and photos posted on Facebook by Savannah Chavez Roesch, the older sister of Donovan Bulger, show members of the family hugging the recipient of Donovan’s heart, John Sueme, and listening to his heartbeat. The families also took group photos together on April 28 .

Roesch said in her Facebook post that her family received a letter from Sueme a year ago, and she wrote back and enclosed two photos of Donovan “so they could put a face to his new heart.” She added that she was unable to put any identifying information in the letters.

Sueme told ABC News he received the heart transplant in August 2016 after being in a heart failure clinic for five years. He was with his wife and daughter at the baseball game when his daughter recognized shirts with pictures of Donovan on them. His wife then went over to introduce herself to the family.

Sueme remembered the moment he allowed Savannah to listen to his heartbeat.

"I was able to hold their head to my chest, and they were about a half an inch from their brother's heart," Sueme told ABC News.

Roesch said on Facebook that she and her family “were all in COMPLETE SHOCK & AWE” that the families met at the game.

“I think Donovan arranged us to meet this way. What are the chances of this happening?!?” Roesch wrote.

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There were a record 36,528 organ transplants performed in 2018. A total of 113,000 people were on the national transplant waiting list as of January 2019, with a total of 17,553 donors, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Transplantation.

Sueme said the two families have exchanged contact information, and believes the families will be “encountering each other for the rest of [their] lives.”

“It was kind of a magical moment, and I hope we can continue this relationship,” Sueme said.