CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Glenn Williams Sr., father of San Francisco Giants pitcher Jerome Williams, holds a picture of organ donor Dennis Santana, who died from a stroke.

Friend’s final gift
grants life

Glenn Williams Sr. learns
an organ donor who saved
his life was a former neighbor

Friends in two families were reunited with the sudden death of a young man and the first transplant in Hawaii last month of both a liver and kidney.

Glenn Williams Sr., 53, father of San Francisco Giants pitcher Jerome Williams, was the transplant recipient.

Dennis Santana, 35, who had a stroke and was declared brain dead on March 8, was the organ donor.

Their families had been friends since before Dennis was born.

Williams said his son and caregiver, Glenn Jr., a Home Depot department manager, kept telling him after the surgery who the donor was.

"It didn't register," he said.

When he finally realized who it was, Williams said: "My whole body gave way. ... I must have cried 15 minutes."

"Will to me is just like a brother," and to her children, he's "Uncle Will," said Annette Santana, Dennis' mother.

She said she has known Williams for about 35 years. They were neighbors for about 25 years in Waipahu and their children went to school together.

Williams played basketball for years in park leagues and coached generations of Waipahu kids in basketball and baseball.

Dennis had never mentioned being an organ donor, but when the family was in the hospital with him, they saw a newspaper story about Williams' illness, Annette said.

"We all sat down and decided, if it matches Willy, that's the only way we would give up his (Dennis') kidney and liver."

"We said, if we're going to do this, we want no dissension," said Annette's son, Kenneth Abraham of Waimanalo. "We want everything right, all pono."

Tweety Santana, Dennis' wife, and his brothers said he was "a giving man" who would have approved the decision.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM The Williams and Santana families gather for a photo. Pictured in the front row are Shirley Santana, Dennis' widow, holding daughter Kayla and son Keola; Williams Sr.; and Dennis' mother, Annette Santana. In the back row from left are Craig Stevens, Glenn Williams Jr. (holding daughter Victoria), Kenneth Abraham, Elizabeth Hagerty, Antonio Santana, Gina Wall, Kendra Sims, Dr. Linda Wong and Jane Lee.

The fact that both organs were available from one donor at the right time and the blood was compatible "was serendipity beyond belief," she said.

"The timing of everything was a miracle," said Glenn Williams Jr.

Wong transplanted both organs in about 6 1/2 hours on March 9. Sometimes it takes 6 to 8 hours just to do one organ, she said, adding: "We've done lots of liver transplants and a lot of kidney transplants. To do them all in one night is a different experience."

Now her patient is walking around the neighborhood, hanging out with his grandchildren and starting to cook and do other things, Wong said. But, she warned him, no baseball or basketball yet.

Glenn Jr. said he's trying to make his dad walk and stay away from things like fried chicken and kalua pig and cabbage: "Fried chicken is the biggest heartbreak for him."

But Kenneth Abraham threw out a big incentive: When he's well enough, Abraham said, "We'll all fly up and watch Jerome."

Williams, a Vietnam Army veteran, said he had gone to Tripler Army Medical Center last fall with a neck injury.

They took a lot of tests and told him his liver was failing, Williams said. "But I didn't come here for that," he told them. "I came for the neck."

Williams learned he has hepatitis C, a virus thousands of residents may have without knowing it. People usually don't feel any symptoms until they have end-stage liver disease. He was scheduled to fly March 7 to the Veterans Administration's liver center in Portland for a transplant, but his liver was so bad that his kidneys also were failing.

Glenn Jr. said he spoke with five or six doctors at Tripler, and "one gave us exactly what was going down. He said two weeks were left."

He discussed the situation with his brothers, Jerome and Elliott, and other family members and decided it would be too dangerous for his father to fly.

Then on March 8, Dennis Santana was declared brain dead after an intercranial hemorrhage at work.

Kendra Sims, coordinator at the Organ Donor Center, spoke to his family about donating his organs.

Abraham said he called Glenn Jr. and said: "We lost Dennis today. He is still on the ventilator. We read about daddy. We want Willy if possible to get it (the organs)."

"I was stunned," said Glenn Jr. "That just hit me."

Sims worked with the VA and Tripler to get Williams to St. Francis quickly for a transplant and arrange VA medical coverage.

She also worked with Jane Lee and Cathy Bailey, St. Francis liver and kidney transplant coordinators, to arrange the transplant. The second kidney was sent to a man in Philadelphia.

Sims said she hadn't met Williams before, but the VA sent a 70-page fax with his workups, and 24 hours after he went into the St. Francis Intensive Care Unit, Williams was in the operating room.

Williams said he wanted to call the Santanas after learning Dennis was his donor, but his son encouraged him to wait until he was stronger.

They all got together Friday at St. Francis with a lot of hugs, laughter and recollections of growing up in Waipahu. They were last all together at a graduation five years ago.

"Oh boy, did we have some functions," recalled Williams, wearing a San Francisco Giants jacket and baseball cap.

Present besides Williams, his son and granddaughter Victoria were Annette Santana; her daughter, Elizabeth Hagerty of Waianae; and sons Craig Stevens of Waianae, Abraham of Waimanalo and Antonio Santana of Waipahu.

Also there were Dennis' wife, Tweety, and two of their four children, ages 7 months to 10 years, Dr. Wong and Sims.

"Oh man, first thing I tell 'em, don't squeeze me too hard," Williams said when he walked in and Antonio clasped him in his arms.

"If anybody get sniffle, no hug Willy now," said Abraham. "No like Willy get sick.

"We were blessed to have Dennis for 35 years. Another blessing would be Willy's benefit from this," he added.

Williams said he tried to teach his sons and the Santana boys basketball and baseball, but it only took with Jerome.

"One professional, these amateurs," he said, drawing a big laugh.

Glenn Jr. said he had potential but "was hard-headed. I didn't want to listen to him." But Jerome watched the Atlanta Braves on TV as a kid and wanted to be like them, so their dad pushed him, he said.

Abraham said his son, also named Kenneth, learned to catch with Jerome.

"Dennis was a good guy," Williams said, explaining he tried hard to play basketball. "I wouldn't give him a bat," he said, getting another big laugh.

"Every time I see him, it was like 15 to 30 minutes, talking, talking, talking," he said, admitting he would circle around Dennis sometimes to avoid his "talky talky."

But he said: "It was a lot of fun being around Dennis. He was a get up and go person. He told me all the things he wanted to do in his life."

He wanted a family and said if he worked hard he would be able to get a house, Williams said.

Dennis and his brother Craig had a recycling business, C.K.S. Specialty Services, and he was close to getting his house, Craig said.

He said Dennis was "always smiling" and remembered for his grin. "Unfortunately, we lost our brother but got another one back," Craig added.

Case highlights need
for more organ donors

The experience of Glenn Williams Sr. demonstrates the critical need for organ donors, says Dr. Linda Wong, transplant surgeon.

"Although it's great that he had two organs and he did well, ideally we wouldn't want to do this," she said.

"Ideally, we like to just transplant livers and put kidneys in another person to save someone else. We need more organ donors so we can transplant livers in a timely fashion.

"If we had more organ donors we could transplant patients a little earlier but so many patients with hepatitis C and liver failure are on the list, we can't get to all of them. They get worse and worse and end up having kidney failure to the point of no return and need two organs."

Antonio Santana, brother of Dennis Santana, whose organs saved Williams' life, said he inadvertently marked the organ donor box for his driver's license, "but I have come to terms with it." He also is a blood donor for premature babies.

His brothers, Craig Stevens and Kenneth Abraham, said the situation with Dennis and Williams opened their eyes to the benefits of organ donation.

"I hope it opens other peoples' as well," said Abraham. "If I was on the other side of the table, I would want to be helped."

April is "National Donate Life Month."

The wait list at St. Francis Medical Center changes monthly, but at last count 395 people were waiting for kidneys, five for a kidney and pancreas, one for a pancreas, three for hearts and 20 for livers.

So far this year, besides the first kidney-liver transplant for Williams, three livers and 14 kidneys have been transplanted.

Since the kidney transplant program began at St. Francis in 1969, a total of 877 kidneys have been transplanted.

Forty-one hearts have been transplanted since the heart program began in 1987.

The liver program began in 1993, and 96 livers have been transplanted.

The pancreas program also began in 1993, and 21 pancreases have been transplanted, most with kidneys.

For more information about organ donation, call the Organ Donor Center of Hawaii at (808) 599-7630.