Hall of Famer Rod Carew, family of late NFL player Konrad Reuland forever connected
Mary Reuland leaned over the hospital bed and nestled her head on the chest of Konrad Reuland, the oldest of her three football-playing boys, a 6-foot-6, 270-pound NFL tight end who had been in a coma for almost two weeks.
It was the morning of Dec. 12, in the intensive care unit of the UCLA Medical Center, just hours before doctors declared her 29-year-old son brain-dead from an aneurysm that ruptured behind his left eye on Nov. 30.
“Something in me, I don't know why, but maybe it's a mother's instinct ... I just laid my right ear on his chest and listened to his heart beating all day, from morning until we had to leave,” Mary said. “I memorized it. And I said, ‘I hope I get to hear this again one day.'”
Less than three months later, Mary stood arm-in-arm with her husband, Ralf, and youngest son, 24-year-old Austin, in the backyard of their San Juan Capistrano home, eagerly awaiting the first meeting with the man who received Konrad's heart and a kidney in a 13-hour operation on Dec. 16.
From a walkway on the side of the house on that sunny Thursday afternoon emerged Rod Carew, the 71-year-old Hall-of Fame baseball player, holding the hand of his wife, Rhonda, as he ambled toward the Reulands.
The 18-time All-Star, 1977 American League most valuable player and seven-time batting champion was joined by two of his children, Cheyenne, 29, and Devon, 27.
Carew, who survived a massive heart attack in 2015, hugged the Reulands. After some small talk, they moved inside, where Rod, sitting on the family room sectional, handed Mary a stethoscope belonging to Ralf Reuland, a doctor.
Mary placed the device on Carew's chest and listened for about 15 seconds. Her eyes reddened as her head sank into Carew's shoulder.
“It was comforting in a way to hear that again, knowing that part of Konrad is still here,” Mary said. “I didn't know until this happened that every heartbeat, like a fingerprint, is unique. It was definitely Konrad's heart in there.”
Next was Ralf, who listened to the heart for about 20 seconds before pulling Carew's face toward his in a warm embrace.
“It was strange to have his heart back in this home, beating in somebody else's chest,” Ralf said. “You just can't explain the feeling.”
Austin leaned into Carew and seemed surprised by the strength and volume of the sound in the stethoscope.
“Wow,” he said. “Hearing that roaring heartbeat of his ... I don't know, it was surreal.”
No word better describes the last four months for the Carews and Reulands, one family mourning the loss of a son and brother, the other buoyed by a second chance at life, the two now inextricably linked by Konrad's heart and a shared desire to promote organ donation, heart and vascular health.
As the mystery surrounding the identities of donor and recipient cleared in January, one coincidence after another led the families to believe they were destined to meet.
Carew wore No. 29 throughout his 19-year career with the Minnesota Twins and Angels, and his heart attack inspired an American Heart Association “Heart of 29” campaign to increase awareness about heart disease. All Carew knew of his donor at the time of the transplant was that he was a 29-year-old man.
Konrad and his brother, Warren, now 28, and Cheyenne and Devon Carew were middle-school classmates at St. John's Episcopal School in Rancho Santa Margarita.
About 15 years ago, a teenage Konrad met Rod Carew at a middle-school basketball game - Warren and Devon were teammates - and spent the rest of the day bragging to his family that he met the Hall of Famer.
According to an official with OneLegacy, the Los Angeles-area chapter of the nationwide organ donor procurement network, this is the first time they've heard of anonymously matched organs between families that knew each other.
It's believed to be the first time a heart has gone from one pro athlete to another.
In Carew, the Reulands also have a source of experience, strength and hope. Carew knows the Reulands' pain. His youngest daughter from his first marriage, Michelle, died in 1996 after a nine-month battle against leukemia. She was 18.
The shy and somewhat reclusive Carew, then the Angels hitting coach, became the face of a campaign to boost the National Marrow Donor Program registry. He has hosted an annual golf tournament to benefit pediatric cancer research in Michelle's honor for 21 years.
“Once we get to know him better, I will ask him how you get through this, how you deal with such a difficult thing,” Mary Reuland said. “It's just another piece of the puzzle - you can't make this stuff up. This is coming from somewhere divine. I think, from above, Konrad did choose who got his organs.”
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