Baptist Heart Institute to hold flag-raising ceremony on National Donate Life Blue & Green Day

WHAT:           Baptist Heart Institute’s heart transplant program will host a ceremony to help raise awareness of the need for organ donation on National Donate Life Blue & Green Day. A heart transplant recipient will raise Mid-South Transplant Foundation’s Donate Life flag in honor of all who have given the gift of life through organ and tissue donation. Also, 594 pinwheels, with eight blades symbolizing the eight lives that can be saved from each organ donor, will be placed in the ground in the shape of a heart in front of the hospital to represent the 93 lung transplants and 501 heart transplants that have been performed at Baptist Heart Institute.

                    WHEN:           Friday, April 10, 2026

                                           1 p.m.

                     WHERE:        Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, flagpole near main entrance

                      6027 Walnut Grove Road      

                      Memphis, TN 38120

BACKGROUND: The Baptist Heart Institute at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis offers comprehensive heart services, including the only certified adult heart transplant and adult extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) programs in the Mid-South. Baptist also offers advanced cardiac care for patients through the Baptist Advanced Heart Failure Program. As a premier heart diagnostic, treatment and research facility, Baptist Heart Institute is the region’s largest and most comprehensive provider of mechanical and circulatory support devices and therapies.

INTERVIEW/PHOTOGRAPY OPPORTUNITIES:

·         Heart transplant patients

·         Kimberly Sharpe, Heart transplant recipient on March 14, 2025, Honorary flag bearer of the Mid-South Transplant Donate Life flag

·         Dr. Dmitry Yaranov, Director of Advanced Heart Failure, Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support, Baptist Heart Institute

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