Coach gets life-saving donation in time for the holidays
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man who is used to calling football plays is celebrating the biggest win of his life tonight.
But it didn’t happen anywhere near the field. It happened in a hospital.
And for Dave Priestley, a football coach at Lakeland High School in LaGrange, victory came in the form of a new heart.
“We got past Gas City and we were just on the outside of town, when it was like, ‘well, I guess we’re going all the way,’” said David Priestley.
That’s coach talk for, “this is really going to happen”. And it did. Five days ago, David Priestly got a new heart.
“It’s just been a huge whirlwind,” said his wife, Stacey. “But I’m so thankful we’re at the end.”
Stacey says it’s been a nerve-wracking two years, ever since she found out her husband, who wrangles tough freshman football players every day, had a weakness in his heart.
“We were prepared to wait, possibly up to two years, so this is technically a year early for me,” said Priestley.
But in the last few months, his condition went from bad to worse. What had been just hard to deal with became life-threatening.
“I had to come to the hospital for a week during football season,” said Priestly. “Being away from the team for a week during the season was hard.”
Last week, they got the call that a heart was available. They drove hours to Indianapolis for the difficult procedure.
“This type of process, really, is jokingly called an excavation,” said IU Health cardiothoracic surgeon I-Wen Wang. “Sometimes the adhesion, the scar tissue, is so dense and tough that is really is like chipping through an excavation, if you will, of the heart to get it out.”
But they got it. And even though he’ll spend the holiday in the hospital, gratitude is all there is. His players will visit Friday, he’s home next week and he’ll be back on the field for another season.
“Right now, I love that the football team is coming but I’m kind of nervous about it,” said Stacey. “Because I know they’re huggers, and they can’t hug, so they’re going to have to elbow bump and fist bump, but I’m just like, I don’t know!”
“It’s really a gift that thank you will never be good enough for,” said Priestley.
For more information on organ donation, click here.