Belleville siblings and man who received brother’s heart meet by chance at Busch Stadium
Siblings of a Belleville man who donated his heart heard it beat once again in a stranger’s chest and were left in tears Sunday after a chance meeting at Busch Stadium.
Savannah Chavez Roesch and her siblings attended Transplant Awareness Day at Busch Stadium in honor of their late brother, Donovan Bulger.
Donovan’s heart was donated after he died in 2016 in a traffic accident. He was 21. Before the accident, the teenager had always expressed his desire to be an organ donor.
An already emotional day, turned into a “hug and cry fest” when a stranger walked up and asked whether they were Bulger’s family.
It was John Sueme, 65. He and his wife, Liza, daughter, Catherine, were attending the awareness night. John, who had struggled with heart failure for five years before receiving a new heart in 2016, was the recipient of Donovan Bulger’s heart.
“We were all in complete shock and awe,” Savannah wrote in a post on Facebook. “I think everyone in the ballpark heard our cries and shrieks of complete shock and joy.”
Savannah had received a letter roughly a year ago from John. She said she wrote back and put some pictures of Donovan along with it so the family could put a face to John’s new heart. In those letters, she did not identify the family.
“It’s such an intense feeling knowing you are so close to contact but really no idea who they are (sic),” she wrote.
However, it was enough for Catherine Sueme, John’s daughter, to recognize the picture of Donovan on the family’s lime-green shirts. John and his family approached the group at Busch and what followed was an emotional meeting between the families.
“Are you Donovan’s family?” Savannah recalled Catherine saying.
Each sibling listened to Donovan’s heartbeat in John’s chest as they exchanged hugs and cried. The two families took a group photo together and ended up sitting together throughout the ball game.
Savannah told CNN she felt like she left the baseball game with a “bigger family.”
“We went to the game as six but left as nine,” she said in the interview. “We are family.”
She said she believes her late brother “arranged” the meeting between the two families.
“What are the chances of this happening?” she said. “ I’m still in complete shock.”
Now, the two families are planning to meet again and get to know each other better. CNN reported they are even planning to get Build-A-Bears for each of Donovan’s nieces and nephews so they can “hear” his heartbeat, too.
This story was originally published April 30, 2019 at 12:43 PM.