In 2001, a Houston baby needed a liver transplant as US flights were grounded; strangers moved the organ 800 miles by C-130, and 25 years later she is in law school
On September 11, 2001, while the US was dealing with the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a six-month-old baby in Houston was fighting for her life. Kareena needed a liver transplant, but the donor organ was nearly 800 miles away in Nashville, and the civilian flights across the US had been grounded.The liver, packed in ice inside a box roughly two feet by one foot, eventually reached Houston aboard a C-130 cargo plane, Houston Chronicle reported. The aircraft, operated by the Tennessee Air National Guard, carried the organ from Nashville to Ellington Field. From there, soldiers took it to Texas Children’s Hospital, where doctors were waiting to perform the transplant.Kareena had been born with biliary atresia, a congenital defect in which the ducts that drain bile from the liver do not form. Because the bile could not drain properly, her liver became badly damaged at a very young age. By September 2001, she had spent most of her short life in the Texas Medical Center and was too sick to go home.“She was too ill to leave the hospital,” Dr John Goss, the hospital’s medical director for transplant services, told Houstone Chronicle, 25 years after the transplant. “She was very sick, and she wasn’t going to survive very long without a transplant,” he added.The chance of a transplant came on the night of September 10, when Goss received a call from his former colleague at Vanderbilt University, Dr Ravi Chari. A liver that could match the six-month-old’s size and blood type was available in Nashville.
Transplant disrupted by 9/11
The original plan was Chari would remove the liver in Nashville, Tennessee Donor Services would arrange a charter flight to Houston, and Goss would transplant the organ into Kareena.That plan changed the next morning. Goss was treating adult patients at St Luke’s when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York. He later recalled, “It’s weird. I can still remember we were in a patient room when the first jet flew into the tower.”A second plane hit the World Trade Center soon after. As the attacks unfolded in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded every civilian aircraft in the country.In Nashville, Chari was still in the operating room with the donor liver. The charter flight that was supposed to carry the organ was no longer possible.Jill Grandas, who was then a coordinator with Tennessee Donor Services and is now its CEO, was told that the flight had been cancelled. A road journey to Houston was considered but rejected. At the time, the organ could not survive the roughly 12-hour drive.Grandas then went to the mail room, took out a phone book and called the air-traffic control tower at Nashville International Airport. She explained that a baby in Houston would die without the liver waiting in the operating room.The supervisor who answered understood the situation. Grandas later learnt that the woman had a relative on a transplant waiting list.Within minutes, another option emerged. The Tennessee Air National Guard agreed to fly the liver to Houston. “It was a feeling of joy in the midst of something so tragic,” Grandas said. “We were determined that we weren’t going to let another person die as a result of that attack.”
Kareena takes selfie with the doctor who saved her life 25 years ago
Military plane carried the tiny liver
Nine National Guard members boarded a C-130 Hercules aircraft and flew the liver to Houston. The aircraft can carry up to 47,000 pounds, but on that flight its important cargo was a liver small enough to fit inside a box packed with ice.The plane landed at Ellington Field within a few hours. At noon, the organ was handed over to another group of soldiers. They drove it towards Texas Children’s Hospital in a military vehicle.The liver then reached Goss, who was waiting to perform the transplant. By that evening, Kareena had received the organ.“Even though there was the horrific event and it was meant to hurt a lot of people, there were still very good people who were not going to let it completely hurt us,” Goss said. “In the end, the good will win.”For Grandas, the successful journey of the organ was possible because everyone involved continued to find a way forward.“Nobody ever said no,” she said. “Not the staff at the hospital, not the FAA or the National Guard. We had a mission to get this liver to Houston. And we did.”
Kareena remembers her saviours
The transplant gave Kareena the chance to grow up. Twenty-five years later, she is still living in the Houston area. She graduated from college and is now studying health policy in law school. She hopes to work in health equity. “I want to make the most of the life that so many strangers worked to give me,” she said.Kareena continues to remember the people who helped her survive. Every September 11, she calls Grandas in Nashville. The two met in person for the first time only recently, when Grandas travelled to Houston.On September 11, 2026, Kareena also returned to Texas Children’s Hospital, where Goss had performed the transplant 25 years earlier. The two have reunited several times since the surgery, although they had not met for a couple of years.Kareena greeted Goss with a hug and later took a selfie with him for her mother. But both said the story was bigger than their reunion.The liver had come from a Tennessee family that had lost an infant on the night of September 10, 2001. In the middle of that loss, the family chose to donate the infant’s organ so another child could live.“They didn’t just save a life,” Kareena said. “They created a family. They created friendships, communities,” she added.
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