Posted on Tue, Jun. 14, 2005

T. Warren, had rare ailment

PALO ALTO RESIDENT, 20, ENJOYED NEW FREEDOM AFTER HEART TRANSPLANT

By Kim Vo
Mercury News

Tyler Warren, the Palo Alto resident whose young life highlighted the importance of organ donation, has died. He was 20.

Mr. Warren died early Sunday at Stanford University Hospital, his parents said. His heart rate had been high for weeks, and he underwent cardiac arrest Saturday and again Sunday.

Hospitals were a familiar place for Mr. Warren, who was born with his pulmonary and aorta arteries in swapped positions. That meant oxygen-deficient blood flowed throughout his body instead of to his lungs. Many in the community followed his surgeries, attended benefit concerts and donated money to help pay for his care.

By the time he was 16, Mr. Warren had undergone nine operations, culminating in a heart transplant that he had hoped would allow him a more typical life.

``Now I feel like I can start,'' he told the Mercury News after the transplant in 2000. ``I never got to go to the mountains because of the altitude. I could never go far away from the hospital -- take a trip.''

The transplant gave him some of those new freedoms, though it also required radiation treatments and occasionally weakened him. He enrolled at community colleges, had his first serious girlfriend and in September traveled to Hawaii, where he went on a ``hike from hell'' and was rewarded with an astonishing waterfall view, his mother, Donna Warren, said.

``That's what the transplant was about: Let him live a life,'' she said.

On Monday, the Warrens, still grieving hard, talked about Tyler Warren's life while making arrangements in the aftermath of his death.

``People need to know about Tyler and what a great guy he was,'' said Gil Warren, his father.

Unable to play sports, Tyler Warren was an avid fan, especially of the San Francisco 49ers. He also followed politics, and would debate his father on everything from the war in Iraq to gay marriage.

Knowing he would need a career with good health insurance, Mr. Warren had aimed to become a college professor. ``Basically, Mom, I think professors work hard, but not that hard,'' Donna Warren recalled him saying. ``So it's perfect for me.''

Last month, Mr. Warren's heart rate jumped, and his fingers began turning blue, his parents said. Lying in the intensive care unit late Saturday, he asked his mother to hold his hand, Donna Warren said. He told her he loved her, and that he was tired.

He soon went into cardiac arrest again, and doctors worked on him in the wee hours Sunday, Donna Warren said, before they finally told the family: ``I think we have to let Tyler go.''

Donation is a strong tradition in the Warren family. In 1993, Gil Warren donated bone marrow for another boy while Tyler Warren underwent surgery.

When Tyler's brother Jesse died last year in a car accident, the family managed to donate his eyes and tissues.

Tyler had hoped to donate, too, his parents said, but his organs and tissues were too compromised.

Donna Warren then offered what she could. ``Can you learn from this, if we give you Tyler's heart?'' she asked doctors. They accepted, she said, after first asking if she was certain.

``Tyler would have wanted it,'' she replied.

TYLER WARREN

Born: July 11, 1984, in Westlake Village

Died: June 12, 2005, in Stanford

Survived by: His parents, Gil and Donna Warren of Palo Alto, and his brothers, Patrick Warren and Kyle Warren.

Services: Will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Unity Palo Alto Community Church, 3391 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto.

Memorial: The family is raising money for a funeral plot where Tyler and Jesse Warren's ashes can be buried alongside each other. Checks can be made to Susan Stone Belton c/o Tyler Warren Memorial Fund, 7565 Tiptoe Lane, Cupertino, Calif. 95014.

Contact Kim Vo at kvo@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7571.