'Extremely Emotional' Tribute for Nurse Who Gave Her All

More than 100 co-workers lined hospital hall to honor late Mary Desin before organ transplant
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 12, 2019 8:52 AM CDT
Co-Workers Pay Moving Tribute to Devoted Late Nurse
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/NanoStockk)

If you happened to be at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Hamot hospital on Friday, you may have stumbled across what a nurse's son described as an "extremely emotional" scene in one of the hallways. That nurse, per ABC News, was Mary Desin, an employee of the hospital who died June 2 at the age of 58 of a brain aneurysm, devastating the colleagues who'd come to know and appreciate her work ethic and devotion to her patients over her 30-year career. That dedication continued even after she died, as Desin had arranged to donate her liver and kidneys to help save others.

And so her co-workers planned their own dedication. As Desin's body was wheeled to the operating room Friday to begin the organ transplant process, more than 100 hospital employees lined up against the wall in their scrubs to pay tribute to her as she passed by (see a pic here). "Most everybody was crying," Desin's son told Good Morning America, via ABC. "People I didn't even know came up to me ... and said how much they loved her and [how] she helped them get further in their career." The hospital has another plan in the works: From now on, whenever an organ is retrieved for a donation, the blue and green lights on top of the hospital that usually get lit for such an event will stay on for 24 hours in Desin's honor, per KHON2. (A big first in North America regarding organ donation.)

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