LOS ANGELES -- The body of actor Jon-Erik Hexum, who fatally shot himself in the head and lay in a coma for a week before his organs were donated to others, was returned early Saturday from San Francisco.
His heart was transplanted Friday into the chest of a 37-year-old man whose condition was reported as good Saturday.
One of his corneas was transplanted Friday at Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and the other was to be transplanted later to another eye patient.
His kidneys were returned to the Southern California Transplant Bank in Los Angeles for future transplants.
Hexum, 26, the star of TV's 'Cover-Up' series, was declared legally dead Thursday night and his body, kept functioning on life support systems, was flown to San Francisco early Friday for the heart operation.
Hexum's mother, Gretha, had approved donating some of his organs for transplant. She and Hexum's brother, Gunnar, were at the actor's side when he was pronounced dead.
The actor shot himself in the right temple with a gun loaded with blanks and empty cartridges last Friday while playing mock Russian roulette on the set of his CBS series.
Hexum apparently had no chance of survival from the moment he pulled the trigger on a .44 Magnum containing a blank round that blew a hole in his skull, doctors said Friday.
'He had no chance of survival from the outset as an injury of this magnitude is virtually always fatal,' Dr. David Ditsworth said.
'When he was brought into the hospital he was in a deep coma with only a very small part of his brain still functioning.
The impact of the powder charge released a heavy paper wad from the blank round and sent a quarter-sized piece of Hexum's skull into the center of his brain, causing a massive hemorrhage on the right side.
Witnesses said Hexum put several blank and empty shells into the pistol, told crew members, 'Let's see if I've got one for me' and then put the gun an inch from his head and pulled the trigger.
Coroner's spokesman Bill Gold said Saturday an autopsy showed that the cause of Hexum's death was a gunshot wound to the head and that the shooting was accidental.
Hexum, a former Michigan State football player, appeared earlier in the series 'Voyagers' and last year had the title role in 'The Making of a Male Model.'
The actor's funeral arrangements were not disclosed.
