BOSTON -- In an overnight medical drama that one surgeon called a "symphony of movement," teams at Brigham and Women's Hospital transplanted two lungs and a heart from a single donor into three patients on the brink of death, doctors said yesterday.

About 100 physicians, surgeons, nurses and other specialists carried out the logistically complex mission that involved many coming to work in the pre-dawn darkness Tuesday and required "bumping" several patients scheduled for elective operations to clear the three surgical suites used for the transplants.

Doctors said the major "white knuckler" was bad weather that threatened the air transportation of the organs from the unidentified donor's location somewhere in New England.

But the heart and lungs arrived at Logan Airport early Tuesday morning and were taken to Brigham and Women's in time for the implants beginning about 10 a.m. that day, said the physicians.

It was only the second time in New England -- and one of a few times anywhere -- that the three major organs were implanted in three recipients at the same institution, said Dr. David Sugarbaker, chief of thoracic surgery.

The patients, men from Connecticut and Maine who received lung transplants and a Haverhill woman who received the heart, were all doing well yesterday, and their relatives were ecstatic.

"I just hope the donor's family knows what an awesome gift they've given," said Aline Santose, daughter of Marie Lowther, 56, in whom the heart was implanted.

The other recipients were Robert Konovaluk, 57, of Waterbury, Conn., and Robert Downs, 60, of Brunswick, Maine.

Beginning with a call from the New England Organ bank at 10 p.m. Monday saying the organs were available, doctors held meetings and traded phone calls through the night to arrange the procurement of the organs, clear operating room time, and assemble the teams needed for the transplants.

The greatest of care in planning was necessary to ensure that the recipients were put under anesthesia at the proper time, said Sugarbaker, to make certain that the donor organs spent no unnecessary time outside the body.

Dr. Scott Swanson, a thoracic surgeon, called it a "symphony of movement."

The team for each transplant recipient included three nurses, two anesthesiologists, two or three surgeons, and several other specialists, he said.

In addition, three surgeons flew in an airplane arranged by the New England Organ Bank to remove the organs from the donor.

Heart transplants have about a 70 percent long-term success rate and lung transplants from 60 to 70 percent, said the Brigham doctors.

Michele Leach, daughter of Downs, a lung recipient, said, "Time was running out for my dad. He had all he could do to get from the bedroom to the kitchen."

But yesterday morning, only two days after the transplant, she said, "he had color in his cheeks again, his hands were warm, and I could see the sparkle in his eye that hadn't been there for a long time."

Pub Date: 12/25/98