When liver donations go wrong

(CNN) -- When Ryan Arnold died after donating a piece of his liver to his brother, Chad, his friends and family mourned the loss of a hero who risked his life to save his brother.

The death affected someone else, too -- someone who'd never met the Arnolds. Her name is Laura Fritz, and when she learned about Ryan's death in August in an online television news piece, she was "devastated."

"It hit really close to home," she told CNN. "Because I knew that could have been me."

Four living liver donors have died in the United States since 1999, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, including Arnold and another patient who died earlier this year at the Lahey Clinic in Massachusetts. About 38% of liver donors have some kind of complication, according to the Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Cohort Study, a project to disseminate information about living donor liver transplants. Some experts think some of these deaths and complications could have been prevented if there was a change the way hospitals exchanged information about complications with organ donations.

"My body was just shutting down"
Like Ryan Arnold, Laura was young and feeling great when she gave away part of her liver. Both had surgery at the University of Colorado Medical Center, one of the world's most respected transplant centers.

In Laura's case, it was her mother, Jane Fritz, who had a debilitating liver disease and needed a transplant. Laura was 26 and her mother 59 when Laura had 60% of her liver surgically removed and given to her mother on September 30, 2009, less than a year before Ryan Arnold had the same surgery.

At first, everything seemed fine. The surgery went well, and both were discharged from the hospital without complications.

When Laura Fritz got home, everything changed.

"I realized I wasn't doing as well as I was supposed to be doing," she remembered. "I wasn't eating anything. I wasn't keeping anything down, fluids or anything."

Jane Fritz took her daughter back to the hospital, where doctors admitted her and diagnosed a small bowel obstruction, which meant a section of her intestines was blocked. After three days of treatment in the hospital, she was able to eat and move her bowels, and she was discharged.

Back at her home in Denver once more, Laura again started to feel ill, and three days later, she went back to the hospital.

"I was really pale. My lips were turning blue, and they couldn't find a blood pressure on me," she said. "My body was just shutting down. ... No one at the hospital said I was going into organ failure, but my mom's a nurse, and she put two and two together."

Laura was rushed to surgery. Afterward, the doctors told her parents that Laura had a hole in her intestines, a medical emergency because if the hole isn't repaired in time, bacteria inside the intestines leak out and cause deadly infections.

Laura fought for her life in the intensive care unit, and she spent the next 36 days in the hospital.
"There was a time when the doctors came to [my mother] and my father and said if this infection doesn't clear up within 24 hours, I'm not going to make it," she said. "They went to the chapel and prayed."

Laura recovered completely, and she hopes doctors learn from her complication and from Ryan Arnold's death, which happened about 10 months apart.

She added that she'd donate to her mother again in a heartbeat.

"It was a terrible, terrible situation, but what came out of it is my mom is alive, and I'm alive," she said.
...CNN