Man Takes Special Journey To Thank Organ Donor's Family

By Bryn Mickle

Journal Staff Writer

The Flint Journal First Edition

April 27, 2004

FLINT -- Michael Hagan has beaten the odds in more ways than one.

Near death after hepatitis ravaged his liver, Hagan had only days to live when he got the call that a new liver for him had been found.

"It was very, very special," said Hagan.

Little did he know how special.

The liver belonged to a young black woman who had been shot eight times in a car as her son looked on from the back seat.

Her family's decision to donate her organs was unusual because organ donations in the black community are below national averages.

Just as special was the journey Hagan took to discover the identity of the dead woman who gave him a chance to live.

Hagan, 55, of Ypsilanti was in Flint on Monday to speak at the Spreading Organ Donation Awareness forum to increase organ donation, especially among blacks.

Hagan, who is white and whose story has been featured on ABC's "Good Morning America," was infected with hepatitis while working as an emergency room physician.

Initially given 18 months to live without a transplant, Hagan was living on borrowed time when he received the new liver two years later.

His skin had yellowed, his belly was swollen and he suffered from mental lapses. The doctors who performed the transplant Dec. 21, 1999, told him his liver was the worst they had ever seen and that he would not have survived another week, Hagan said.

Hagan wanted to know where the liver came from, but confidentiality rules allowed him to know only that his donor was 21.

That wasn't enough for Hagan.

His billing statement for the transplant listed charges for a helicopter that flew a doctor to a Lansing hospital to get the new liver, giving Hagan a lead in his search.

A phone conversation with a Lansing newspaper reporter he knew gave Hagan another clue when the reporter detailed how a shooting victim named Shemika Rogers had spent days in Lansing's Sparrow Hospital before her organs were donated.

"Maybe yes. Maybe no," said Hagan of the chances that Rogers' liver was inside him.

But the chance was enough to send Hagan to sit in on the six-week trial of Rogers' killer.

Hagan had already sent one letter to the Rogers family asking to meet, but the letter had gone unanswered.

With the help of the Ingham County prosecutor, Hagan finally hugged the family of the woman whose liver had saved him.

Joking that he is now half black and only 37 when you average his and Rogers' ages, Hagan remains close with the family.

Hagan said Rogers' father told him that his anger toward his daughter's killer dissolved when he realized that part of her survived in a man she never knew.

"This is the power of transplant," said Hagan.

Copyright © 2004 Flint Journal.

This article posted May 16, 2004