Bentleyville man is rare two-time altruistic donor
Courtesy of CORE
Mark Weinman, left, with Edward Rice of Butler County, and Rice’s family. Weinman, of Bentleyville, is an altruistic organ donor who donated a portion of his liver to Rice, who needed a life-saving transplant.
Courtesy of CORE
Mark Weinman, left, of Somerset Township, with Edward Rice of Butler County. In 2020, Weinman donated 56% of his liver to Rice, who needed a life-saving organ transplant.
Courtesy of CORE
Mark Weinman, right, of Somerset Township, Washington County, in a Nebraska hospital in 2016 after he donated a kidney to Nebraska resident Gary Golter, who had been on a transplant waiting list. Weinman had never met Golter before he offered to donate his kidney to the critically ill man.
Courtesy of CORE
Mark Weinman of Somerset Township at UPMC in Pittsburgh in 2020 after he donated a portion of his liver to a Butler County man who had been on an organ transplant waiting list. Weinman is a rare, two-time living organ donor.
At any given time, more than 100,000 people in the United States are sitting on a waiting list for a life-saving organ transplant.
And every day, nearly 20 people die because the organs they need are not donated in time. There are simply far more people in need of a transplant than there are organs available.
But Mark Weinman, of Bentleyville, has answered the call to donate his organs – twice.
Weinman, 56, is one of only 145 people in the United States who donated more than one organ to two different people as a living donor since 1994, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
“I don’t consider myself a hero. I just did what I thought was right,” said Weinman. “I did what anybody would do.”
Weinman is a non-directed, or altruistic living donor, meaning he wasn’t related to and didn’t know the recipient.
The Nebraska native’s first organ donation occurred at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha in 2016, when he donated his left kidney to the stepfather of an old friend after he saw her plea on Facebook.
Said his friend, Anne Hansen, after Weinman was honored as a Good Samaritan Hero by the Red Cross Nebraska-SW Iowa five years ago, “My definition of a hero would be somebody that is selfless and would give anything, would do anything to save somebody, and absolutely, Mark is a hero, and he will always be a hero in my mind.”
Then, in 2020, while still living in Nebraska, Weinman donated a portion of his liver to Edward Rice of Butler, at UPMC in Pittsburgh.
Rice suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, and his health had declined to the point where he was placed on the transplant waiting list.
But the waiting time for a liver transplant from a deceased donor can be as long as five years, and Rice was running out of time.
Weinman, who had long considered becoming a living donor for a second time, had visited a Facebook page for transplant patients and donors, and a post from Rice’s wife, Randy, caught his attention.
Weinman had recently completed testing at UPMC for another person in the support group who needed a transplant, but in the meantime that patient received a liver from a deceased donor.
“It was on a Wednesday that my wife posted it, and on Friday Mark got in touch with her. He said he had all his testing already done to be a donor at UPMC when it fell through, and he was ready to go,” recalled Rice.
Weinman was a match, and on July 13 – just three weeks after he had connected with Rice on social media – doctors removed 56% of Weinman’s liver and replaced Rice’s damaged liver with it.
“I knew in my mind if I had a chance to donate another organ again, I would,” he said.
The pair met for the first time while they were waiting to be wheeled into their operating rooms and “we figured out we were each other’s people,” Weinman laughed.
“I’m thankful he did what he did. It takes a special person to do that,” said Rice, noting the two keep in touch. “To ask somebody to do that for you, to donate an organ, how do you do that?”
Weinman has been listed as an organ donor on his driver’s license since he turned 16, but became aware of living organ donors in 2012 while he was attending a medical assistant program in Massachusetts in 2012.
“I started thinking that it was something I’d want to do,” he said.
Weinman’s organ recipients are enjoying their second chance at life. Weinman, too, is doing well.
He moved permanently to Washington County after his second organ donation, and has become an advocate for living donation at Center for Organ Recovery and Education.
“We need to get the word out about living donors. There are a lot of people who need transplants and not enough donors,” said Weinman. “We need to educate people about living donors. If there were more living donors, there wouldn’t be as many people on the waiting list. There are strangers who are willing to step up. I wish more people would step up.”
There were 314 living donors in Pennsylvania in 2022, the fourth consecutive record-breaking year for living donations, according to CORE.
Nationwide, there were 6,466 living kidney and liver transplants last year.
A total of 14,903 people became deceased organ donors nationwide in 2022, the 12th consecutive record year for deceased donation and an increase of 7.5% over 2021.
Katelynn Metz, a spokesperson for CORE, said living donors can play a significant role in reducing the wait time for someone on the waiting list for a life-saving transplant.
“It’s an incredible gift of a second chance, and it’s possible for many people to do,” said Metz.
Weinman can no longer volunteer as a living donor, since he donated a kidney and a lobe of his liver.
But, he plans to donate after his death. Deceased donors can save up to eight lives, through donations of kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas, and the heart. Additionally, one tissue donor – someone who donates bone, tendons, cartilage, connective tissue, skin, corneas, sclera, and heart valves and vessels – can impact the lives of as many as 75 people.
“Being raised in the Midwest, I learned from a young age that when you see somebody in need, you help. I give what I can give,” said Weinman. “I’d encourage people to be a donor. You can make a difference.”
For more information on becoming an organ donor, visit core.org/register. You can also become a donor by checking the organ donor box at the Department of Motor Vehicles.