Heart And Kidney Transplant Recipient Defies One Percent Odds, Heads To NFL Draft After UPMC Care

Brooke Sturgis Survives Two Transplants, Returns To Pittsburgh To Work NFL Draft

USA: Brooke Sturgis, who underwent both a heart and a kidney transplantation within a single year at UPMC, returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh this week as an event coordinator for the NFL Draft. At 19, she faced a one percent chance of living according to her care team; intensive surgical and medical care at UPMC gave her a path back to health and to a new career.

The bell she rang at the Draft venue served as a public symbol of recovery and renewal after months of hospitalization, surgeries, and rehabilitation. Sturgis’s story focuses attention on the life-changing potential of organ transplant programs, the multidisciplinary teams that make simultaneous transplants possible, and the rehabilitation process that follows complex procedures.

Her experience underscores the dual challenges of heart and kidney transplantation — from urgency and surgical coordination to long-term recovery and reintegration into daily life. Sturgis credits the Pittsburgh medical community’s expertise for the outcome that allowed her to resume an active professional life, working to create joyful experiences for others through large-scale sports events.

Now back amid the skyline and the hospital that treated her, Sturgis has redirected the second chance afforded by transplantation into public-facing work and community gratitude. Her return to the city and to the Draft is being framed as a full-circle moment, a testament to modern transplant care and to the personal resilience that follows lifesaving procedures.

Video originally published on 2026-04-17 16:51:49