Army Veteran’s Endurance Leads to Lifesaving Transplant at Barnes-Jewish Hospital

On Easter Sunday 2026, a phone rang in the cardiac intensive care unit at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Jonathan Moreno, MD, a WashU Medicine advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish and chief of VA St. Louis Health Care System’s heart failure program, was on the line with urgent news for Army veteran Nick Murry.

Murry, a 45-year-old husband and father who had spent months trying to prepare his body for the heart and kidney transplant he needed to survive, was not in his hospital bed. He was walking in the hallway outside of his room with a Barnes-Jewish nurse, trying to improve his physical endurance.

He was asked to sit down to hear what his nursing team was about to tell him.

After countless prayers, months of waiting, three instances of cardiac arrest before his care team restarted his heart, and one scheduled transplant that never happened, Nick processed the news.

He had a new organ donor match.

A diagnosis that changed everything

Nick joined the Army in 2013 with a degree in aviation management. He got sick early in his service and left on a medical discharge. Heart conditions are common in Nick’s family, and he soon learned he was living with a severe one of his own.

In 2014, Nick was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The progressive condition weakens the heart's ability to pump blood. Over time, fluid can build up in the body, leading to shortness of breath, swelling, and fatigue. Left untreated, the condition can worsen and eventually affect other organs as the heart struggles to meet the body's needs.

In 2017, Muhammad Faraz Masood, MD, a WashU Medicine cardiothoracic surgeon, repaired a tear in Nick’s aorta, the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body, during a surgery at Barnes-Jewish.

While that emergency open-heart surgery repaired the aorta, it couldn't stop Nick’s congestive heart failure. The condition gets worse over time as the heart muscle gets progressively weaker.

As Nick's heart failure got worse, reduced blood flow also damaged his kidneys. Eventually, he would need both a heart and kidney transplant to survive.

For years, Nick managed the symptoms of his condition while he and his wife, Patricia, raised their son, AJ, at their home in Caseyville, Illinois.

When fluid buildup, a common symptom of heart failure, made it hard for him to breathe, he needed help. He turned to VA St. Louis Health Care System to have the fluid drained, in addition to other heart-related care his condition required.

In October 2025, Nick felt short of breath, dizzy, and lightheaded. He figured it was because of the fluid buildup again. But this time he lost strength quickly.

Patricia had to help him get dressed before a family member drove him to VA St. Louis Health Care System, where doctors discovered Nick's heart was in cardiogenic shock and could no longer pump enough blood to keep his organs working.

Dr. Moreno; Anuja Java, MD, a WashU Medicine transplant nephrologist at Barnes-Jewish and director of the Kidney Transplant Clinic at VA St. Louis Health Care System; and other members of Nick's VA St. Louis Health Care System care team worked rapidly to move Nick toward a lifesaving transplant at Barnes-Jewish.

Advanced transplant care close to home

In July 2025, VA St. Louis Health Care System became a designated heart transplant program within the Department of Veterans Affairs, in collaboration with WashU Medicine and Barnes-Jewish.

Before that, some veterans in the St. Louis region had to navigate extra steps or travel long distances for transplant surgery, which VA St. Louis Health Care System does not provide. This collaboration is designed to keep more veterans close to home by allowing them to have surgery at Barnes-Jewish along with access to collaborative follow-up care.

Nick’s care team transferred him to Barnes-Jewish, where physicians determined his lungs were failing and temporarily placed him on a ventilator to breathe for him.

The next day, his care team placed a temporary mechanical heart pump. The device helped move blood from his weakened heart into the body’s main artery, keeping blood circulating through his body while reducing the work his heart had to do.

Nick needed every hour of support the pump gave him. His kidneys stopped working, and he started dialysis, a treatment that filters waste and extra fluid from the blood when kidneys can't do it on their own. Over the following weeks, his heart stopped three times. Each time, his team brought him back.

While he waited to find out his chances of receiving a lifesaving operation, Nick was awake and alert, but machines were doing the work of his heart and kidneys.

Nick and Patricia leaned heavily on their faith. Patricia was a regular visitor to the Barnes-Jewish chapel, where she would pray for hours at a time. The couple often prayed for the doctors and nurses caring for Nick.

A complex case meets an experienced team

The WashU Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center is one of the largest organ transplant programs in the nation.

For more than 40 years, the center’s multidisciplinary care team has guided patients before, during, and after transplant surgery using the latest research and the most advanced technology.

For Nick, this expertise created a team ready for a case as complex as his.

Because he had already undergone major open-heart surgery in 2017, a second operation carried additional risk and could limit his options at some transplant programs. Nick also needed a combined heart and kidney transplant. The complicated procedure, which is not available at all transplant programs, has been performed at The WashU Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center for more than 16 years, including more than 40 heart-kidney transplants within the last five years.

A difficult road forward

Nick was determined to get healthy enough to have a chance at a transplant. First, he had to get physically strong enough for the procedure. In November, he had lost nearly 100 pounds and was not able to get out of bed.

A lack of physical strength can create postoperative complications for some transplant patients. The stronger the body is going into the operation, the better the body tends to respond to surgical stress and recovery.

Slowly, Nick improved. His kidneys recovered enough for him to stop dialysis. With help from the pump, his heart did a little more each week. Then, he stood up and walked 20 feet with a walker, encouraged by Barnes-Jewish nurses every step of the way.

Nick set a goal.

"Whatever I have to do to walk out of this hospital, I'll do," he told himself. "I'm going to endure."

Nick stacked milestones. Twenty feet of walking became 40. Then 40 became a lap around his hospital floor, followed by two laps.

On Jan. 23, 2026, Nick was strong enough to be added to the transplant list for a combined heart and kidney transplant.

In late March, the first call came. A donor heart and kidney were available, and the operating room was booked. The nurses who had cared for Nick for months lined the hallway outside his room to send him off. Dr. Moreno came to shake his hand before Nick left the floor.

"I told him I was proud of him, and that I would be there waiting on the other side," Dr. Moreno says.

A trust-building pause

Before any transplant moves forward, the surgical team examines the donor organ one last time to make sure it's right for the patient. Usually, that exam confirms earlier evaluations. This time, though, the surgical team found damage to one of the donor heart's coronary arteries. The heart wasn't right for Nick, which meant his combined heart and kidney transplant was called off.

Nick went back to his room, still waiting. Dr. Moreno went to see him in person.

"It took everything for me to hold back my tears as I went back up to the ICU," Dr. Moreno says.

Nick reached out to shake his hand.

"It just wasn't my time yet," Nick told Dr. Moreno. "I trust you and your team. We'll get there."

For Patricia, that day deepened her trust in Nick's care team. The team had been willing to stop at the last moment rather than give her husband an organ that wasn't right for him.

"I knew when I would leave him and come home that there were people that cared about him," Patricia says.

The call they prayed for

Nick had made peace with waiting. He told Patricia he wasn't going to rush it. He would wait on God's timing.

The call came Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026. Nick and a donor were a match. His transplant was happening.

Three days later, a collaborative team of WashU Medicine transplant specialists including surgeons Kunal Kotkar, MD, Amit Pawale, MD, and Adeel Khan, MD, transplanted Nick’s new heart and kidney in a single operation at Barnes-Jewish.

Three weeks later, just before his birthday, Nick went home in time to spend the day with Patricia and AJ. They celebrated with cake and ice cream.

A future worth waiting for

Nick is cooking for Patricia and AJ again. He recently drove AJ for a haircut on his sixth birthday. The family loves Friday-night movies, Saturday-morning cartoons, and card games.

"For some patients, it can be a challenge to go from being sick for so long to trusting their body again,” says Victor Valencia, Nick’s post-heart transplant coordinator at Barnes-Jewish, who helps patients like Nick in all aspects of care after they return home. “Nick has done a great job. He was upbeat and excited to get home. He knows he has a story to tell, and he’s living for his family. Knowing what he’s been through, his outlook on life is impressive.”

Nick's follow-up care is going well. A physical therapist and nurses visit the family's home regularly. Nick's scans and tests following his operation show his new heart and kidney are healthy and functioning. The family is forever grateful to Nick's donor and every member of the care team who believed in him when he said he was determined to live.

"Exceptional is an understatement," Nick says. "They all went above and beyond."

Learn more about the WashU Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center.