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Transplant Recipient Dies: 17-Year-Old Burglary Suspect Received ‘Controversial’ Heart Transplant In 2013

By Effie Orfanides
Published on: 14:13 PST, Apr 1, 2015

A heart transplant recipient dies after a car chase in California. According to CBS News, 17-year-old Anthony Stokes was being chased by police after he allegedly broke into a home in Roswell, Ga., and fired a gun. A 33-year-old pedestrian was injured in the high speed chase, but is said to be in good condition at a nearby hospital.

“The police chase spanned a mile before Stokes lost control of the vehicle and hit a car and a pedestrian, before crashing into a sign, according to WGCL. Stokes was reportedly cut out of the car by fire officials and was taken to a hospital where he later died.”

What police didn’t know at the time of the chase is that the young man inside the car was actually someone who made headlines after undergoing a controversial heart transplant back in 2013.

News that the transplant recipient died has stirred up the debate surrounding his surgery once more. Although doctors decided that Stokes was “non-compliant” because of his “bad behavior,” Stokes received support from the community, and from a local church group, and the hospital reconsidered his case.

“We met with the transplant committee and they told us they were considering all the other stuff, which shocked us. They talked about truancy, they talked about absence in school, juvenile, there was a list in those things – poverty was one of the criteria,” said Rev. Samuel Mosteller, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference back in 2013.

According to USA Today, a lot of people thought that Stokes would clean up his act once he was given a new chance at life, but that wasn’t the case at all.

“I was sure that he would be one of my poster kids, I really did, because he was on the right track, he was talking right. He was doing everything he was supposed to do,” said his mentor, Mack Major. “Every [picture on Facebook] he had with the gun in his hand … with his pants hanging way down. Bothered me so much that it’s absolutely sickening.”

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Stokes seemed to have a positive outlook on life when he was 15, and he sounded like he wanted to change… but it’s clear that “things he wanted to do” weren’t exactly “good” things.

“So I can live a second chance. Get a second chance and do things I want to do,” Stokes said before his heart surgery.

[Photo via Twitter]

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