{"id":373057,"date":"2026-10-14T16:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/373057\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T16:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:48:14","slug":"chance-encounter-brings-new-york-firefighter-to-vanderbilt-health-for-heart-transplant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/373057\/","title":{"rendered":"Chance encounter brings New York firefighter to Vanderbilt Health for heart transplant"},"content":{"rendered":"

In more than 40 years as a volunteer firefighter with the North Patchogue Fire Department on Long Island in New York, Bob Meyer has been in the middle of a lot of life and death situations.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, he was facing his own. Meyer, also a retired corrections officer, needed a heart transplant after a procedure to repair an aortic aneurysm at a local hospital was unsuccessful, and his heart was damaged. \u201cBasically, they told me my heart wasn\u2019t going to get any better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He got on the heart transplant list locally in New York, knowing that he would likely have to become very sick before he would qualify for a donor heart, if a matching one could be found. He had no way of knowing at the time that a chance encounter would point him to the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, and he would receive a new heart nearly 1,000 miles away.<\/p>\n

Jim Hawley, BSN, RN, at the time a Vanderbilt Health nurse, was playing in a charity golf tournament in New York that he goes to every September. Every year, he drops by the firehouse where he was a volunteer in the 1980s. This time, he ran into his old buddy, Meyer. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby walked in, and he didn\u2019t look good,\u201d Hawley recalled. \u201cHe had just a grayish color to him, and I noticed he had a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line in his arm and something infusing. I said, \u2018Dude, what happened?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Meyer explained that he needed a new heart. It stayed on Hawley\u2019s mind after returning to his job at Vanderbilt LifeFlight\u2019s Cardiac Transfer Center. He ran into Ashish Shah, MD, Professor and Chair of Cardiac Surgery, and told him about his friend\u2019s situation. Shah told Hawley that Meyer could be \u201cdual-listed\u201d \u2014 placed on the transplant list at Vanderbilt Health as well as the health system in New York \u2014 which could give him a chance to get a heart faster.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, Meyer was at Vanderbilt Health getting tested to be considered for a transplant in Nashville. But there was a catch: When a heart is available, a patient typically only has a few hours to grab their bags and head for the hospital for a transplant. New York would be too far away.<\/p>\n

It happened that Meyer had a brother who had just moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, a two-hour drive from Nashville. So, in April 2025, Meyer moved in with his brother and began traveling to appointments at Vanderbilt Health each month.<\/p>\n

Events began to move more quickly. Meyer was getting sicker and sicker<\/a>, and when he showed up for his scheduled doctor\u2019s appointment in January 2026, his heart was in such poor condition that he was admitted to Vanderbilt University Hospital. Meyer would need to stay in the hospital until a suitable organ could be found.<\/p>\n

Less than two weeks later, the Vanderbilt Transplant Center found a matching organ, and Meyer received his lifesaving heart transplant at Vanderbilt Health. His surgeon was Shah, who holds the Alfred Blalock Directorship in Cardiac Surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of our mission as the world\u2019s largest heart transplant program, we understand how important access to Vanderbilt Health and the heart program is to these desperately sick patients,\u201d Shah said. \u201cOur patients new to Vanderbilt Health get the vital link they need, thanks to our pretransplant coordinators: Emily Firsich, MSN, RN; Cayce Ray, BSN, RN; Kristie Stewart, BSN, RN; and Leah Swafford, BSN, RN. This is unique to our program, and Mr. Meyer is a powerful example of just how critical the pretransplant team is to our success.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York firefighter and heart transplant patient Bob Meyer on the job.<\/p>\n

During his recovery, Meyer stayed at the C. Wright Pinson Hospitality House, which provides low-cost lodging for families and long-term patients receiving medical treatment at Nashville-area hospitals, including Vanderbilt Health. It was near the Vanderbilt Dayani Center, where Meyer received rehab services and regained his strength after the transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything was just super, with the way it was set up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meyer also made friends at the hospitality house who were going through similar medical journeys.<\/p>\n

In April, Meyer was well enough to return to his home in New York, where he lives with his wife, Maritza, and sons, Robert and Ryan. He returns to Vanderbilt Health monthly for appointments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel really good,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s kind of amazed at how I look and how I feel so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it all happened because he ran into an old friend at the firehouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe timing of the whole thing was just crazy,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cIf I don\u2019t go in the firehouse at that time, if I\u2019m not working down here at Vanderbilt, if Bob and I don\u2019t have a history together \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Meyer said, \u201cI\u2019m glad that I did run into him, and it worked out the way it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s Meyer spreading the word about the Vanderbilt Transplant Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran into a guy when I was on vacation,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was having some heart issues and stuff, and he lived in Virginia. And I said, \u2018Listen, if you\u2019re ever thinking about a heart transplant \u2026 I would definitely look into Vanderbilt.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In more than 40 years as a volunteer firefighter with the North Patchogue Fire Department on Long Island…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[137384,137385,137386,9,11,10,137387],"class_list":["post-373057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-ashish-shah","tag-department-of-cardiac-surgery","tag-heart-transplant","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-vanderbilt-transplant-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}