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Ten years after losing her father in a 2006 Pittsburgh robbery, Jeni Stepien walked toward her groom, Paul Maenner, on the arm of Arthur Tom Thomas — the organ recipient who had carried Michael Stepien's donated heart for a decade and had never met his donor's daughter until that day.
Before the processional began, Thomas leaned close and offered Jeni a choice: place her hand on his chest and feel the beat of her father's heart.
A Donation Made in Grief, a Life Extended by Years Michael Stepien was killed during a robbery in 2006, when Jeni was 23. In the immediate aftermath, Stepien's wife Bernice and daughter Jeni chose to donate his organs.
Two days later, hundreds of miles away, Thomas received the heart transplant he had been seeking for nearly a decade. At the time of surgery, doctors measured his remaining life expectancy in days or weeks.
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