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Vietnam vet gets heart of 21-year-old killed in fire

"He made the decision that if life ever slipped away from him, he would give life to someone else," Matt's father Jared Heisler said.

By Brooks Hays

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Patrick Henry Pearse said that from death springs life. Ancient rhetoric is likely little consolation to the family of Matt Heisler, a 21-year-old University of North Dakota student who died in an off-campus house fire last spring.

But Heisler's parents and younger sister were touched by the chance hear his heart beat once again -- this time in the chest of Tom Meeks, a Vietnam veteran who was diagnosed in 2011 with a rare heart disease called amyloidosis.

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Before making it onto a transplant waiting list, Meeks was rejected by five different hospitals. Finally, Meeks was accepted by the Mayo Clinic. He and his wife moved across the country from Washington State to Rochester, New York, in order to be closer to the hospital. Three years later, as Meeks' liver began malfunctioning, the call finally came.

That call came at the expense and grief of the Heislers, of course. But eight months after Matt's death, his family was ready to see (and hear) part of him live on in another.

"He made the decision that if life ever slipped away from him, he would give life to someone else," Matt's father Jared Heisler told Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE 11. "This is awesome," Jared Heisler said after he listened to his son's heart beat once again.

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"The heart that I grew up with and felt in all of my hugs when I hugged him is still out there somewhere," his sister Casey said.

Meeks was not the only person who benefited from Hiesler's decision to check that organ donor box on his driver's license application. As many as 60 people received medical assistance and vital organs as a result of Matt's death.

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