Latvia celebrates 50th heart transplant

The heart was transplanted to a man who is especially happy that he will be able to be an active father again and spend time with his child. Heart surgeons call this a success story of Latvian medicine. After a heart transplant, the quality of life of patients improves. The record so far is 19 years lived with a new heart. When Kaspars Bergholcs received word that there was a donor for his terminally ill heart, he admits that he was scared. But living with a diseased heart for 16 years was even scarier. Thus, Kaspars became the 50th person in Latvia to receive a donor heart transplant. "There was a call. And I was nervous. We talked, we talked it all out," Bergholz recalled. "I went to the doctors, I fought, there was a clot, they dissolved it.