NEW YORK (AP) - The head of a group that helped locate organs for the Mexican teenager who died after a bungled transplant says his organization didn't know her blood type before it released the heart and lungs.
Jesica Santillan, 17, died Feb. 22, more than two weeks after her first heart-lung transplant at Duke University Medical Center.
A second set of organs was required because Jesica had type-O blood and the organs used in the first operation were type A. Correctly matched organs were implanted Feb. 20, but she died two days later.
"We could have requested her blood type, and I wish we had," Lloyd Jordan, president of Carolina Donor Services, said in a "60 Minutes" interview broadcast Sunday. "We did not do that."
The policy of the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the distribution of organs nationwide, requires that blood types of donors and recipients be matched before releasing any organs.
Duke already admitted its own errors and has implemented new rules for handling organ transplants to prevent another mismatch. One rule requires a blood sample from donor organs be taken directly to Duke's transfusion services department for blood typing.
The transplant surgeon, the transplant coordinator and the organ-harvesting surgeon also will have to perform compatibility checks.
