FARGO — When word came to surgeons that a heart was available for Fargo resident John Neuenschwander in the Twin Cities, it took some dedicated Minnesota State Troopers to form a relay through heavy road construction to get that heart to the operating room.

Neuenschwander has certainly had time to think about living and surviving. His heart hasn’t been good for decades.

“Sanford (…) for 40 years kept me alive,” Neuenschwander said of his heart doctors in Fargo.

He has gone through 40 years of treatments trying to keep that ticker pumping.

“We were at a fork in the road where it’s time for intervention,” he said. “My pumping mechanism, (…) the ejection fraction typically is in the low 60s, mine got down to a 10. Failing, huge.

When he got to Mayo Clinic for an evaluation in October, he never left.

“You realize this is not a dress rehearsal. What’s important. Kind of a slap of reality,” he said.

He underwent multiple tests and finally got a life-saving and life-altering answer: he was on the transplant list. Soon, Neuenschwander, waiting at Mayo Clinic, got the news.

He got the call that a donor heart was available.

“(W)hen they strolled me away, I had no reservations. I felt good,” he said.

The donor heart was in the Twin Cities. But how would it get to Rochester — through road construction — as soon as possible? Enter troopers from the Minnesota State Patrol.

“(I) had no idea that it was that precarious and my surgeon actually had to make the call to the troopers, and he said, ‘This is not going well here and the heart is delayed (…) I need help,’ and they rose to the occasion,”

Forming a relay, one trooper after the other drove with lights and sirens until the donor heart made it to Rochester and the transplant team at Mayo Clinic who, along with Neuenschwander, was waiting.

“Once they told me (…) I qualified, 48 hours later I had a new heart,” he said.

Weeks after that heart transplant, Neuenschwander is a grateful man. “Many days approach Nirvana,” he said. “I was given months to live.”

The troopers who raced that heart to him in the Minnesota darkness returned to Rochester to meet him.

To that donor family that made the ultimate decision to donate their loved one’s heart? “I’ve thought quite a bit about it, and I feel very humbled,” Neuenschwander said.

“I am blind here and I’m a little intimidated by the task of trying to, say, send them a Hallmark card. I want to do the best I possibly can from their perception to affect gratitude,” he said.

Talk about full circle. His son, Justin Neuenschwander, put it all in perspective.

“It’s weird to see your Dad go from — well, let me put it this way. When I was a kid, he would carry me up the step and he said, ‘I’ll carry you, but you’re going to have to carry me some day,’” Justin said.

Justin and his brother, Paul Neuenschwander, flew in to spend time with their dad during his recovery.

John Neuenschwander was uncertain of what 2024 held in store. That is no longer a question.

“I found it. A gift,” John said.

John, who many are used to seeing driving around Fargo in his 1930 Model A Roadster, said there are many people to thank, including the donor’s family, his family, his co-workers at Merrill Lynch, longtime companion Ruth Ann Halls and the Minnesota State Troopers.

Mayo Clinic is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its first organ transplant. 31,000 organ transplants later, technology is changing the landscape of donation. Transplant surgeons are using the “heart in a box” method to revive donor hearts, perfusing them and getting them to waiting donors.

Mayo performs just over 140 heart transplants every year at its campuses in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida.

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