Joe Hasse

A morale booster for Joe — Arizona Cardinals kicker Neil Rackers pays a visit to Joe, pre-transplant.

Joe Hasse could be described as a typical 16-year-old, fixated on video games, sports and Harry Potter CDs. That pretty much defined him on the morning of April 9, 2006, when he was casually browsing in a Phoenix area book store.

Until then, his parents insist he was the portrait of health. But things went profoundly awry that milestone day. No one had any clue that the morning would evolve as a day of catastrophic change for young Joe. In fact, when it was all over, he had a "change of heart" — literally.

Joe, through no choosing of his own, holds the undisputed title as the youngest heart transplant patient in Maricopa County - and at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where the heart transplant program began in October 2005. The unremarkable trip to the book store is a distant memory for Joe's parents, Angel Grinder and Pat Hasse, because what started out as Joe feeling ill and vomiting morphed into a medical odyssey in which his heart stopped a number of times, his kidneys, liver and lungs began to shut down, he "coded" and was eventually stabilized at another medical center and finally air-lifted to Mayo.

"My son's face was blue and his lips were purple," recalls Pat, Buckeye, Ariz. "They basically told me Joe had an extremely enlarged heart and would need a heart transplant. It was a shock, given that the day had started out so normal. Then all of a sudden, we're in this emergency room where they're fighting to get a pulse and a heartbeat on my son."

Joe's mother, Angel, who came as quickly as she could from her home in California, arrived at the hospital also in a state of shock, never expecting to hear the words, "It's a waiting game for your son." In her mind, young Joe was like any kid his age and was set to be a junior in high school in the fall. "I lost it," Angel confesses.

As of May 12, Joe was placed on the list for a heart transplant. But within two hours, "He took another nosedive, and was taken off the list, too sick to undergo a transplant," recalls Pat. But Joe persevered, as did his medical team. By May 17, he showed improvement and was again listed. But it took two mechanical pumps, called ventricular assist devices (VADs), to keep his heart going.

A boost to Joe's morale happened just a few days before a heart came in and he was able to get his transplant. One of his sports heroes, Neil Rackers, kicker for the Arizona Cardinals football team, paid Joe a visit. They talked, had lunch and spent considerable time together.

Then the life-altering call came to Joe's family at 2:30 a.m. on May 20. A heart had come in and the transplant would proceed, under the leadership of heart transplant surgeon Dr. Francisco Arabia and the surgical and medicine teams. The transplant took place, and several hours later, Joe was in recovery.

His life may not have rebounded to normal for a number of weeks, but Joe's appetite certainly did. Within days of his transplant, he was sitting up, requesting his siblings to fetch him a bountiful buffet of what some might call junk food. While many recuperating from major surgery may have recoiled at the mere thought of food, Joe couldn't seem to get enough of chips, salsa and enchiladas to fill out his six-foot, three-inch lanky frame.

Moreover, once the video games were again fired up in his hospital room, Joe seemed oblivious to the chatter all around him that chronicled a stunning story of courage, perseverance, teamwork and near-death experiences. The family is eternally grateful to the medical team at Banner Estrella Hospital in Phoenix that worked on Joe for hours to keep him alive- and to the team at Mayo Clinic that eventually transplanted him and is now carefully watching his progress as Joe heads back to school.

In short, Joe is the real-life "comeback kid."