

Less than 24 hours after his seven-hour-long double-lung transplant surgery, Jorge's breathing tube had been removed and he was strolling the halls of the hospital. The operation took seven hours.ĭid Jorge really recover that quickly from his double-lung transplant?

He and Leslie got the call on March 27, 2008, and they flew to Jacksonville where Jorge underwent a double-lung transplant at the Mayo Clinic medical center. Jorge, then 64, had a plane available at a moment's notice in case a pair of lungs ever showed up on the donor list. Jorge and his wife Leslie were residing in the Bahamas when they found out that a matching organ donor had passed away. Was Jorge Bacardi living in the Bahamas when he found out there was an organ donor match? Friends from college and childhood came to visit him as well. Like in the movie, this included his mother, father and two older brothers, John and Colin. The true story behind 2 Hearts confirms that Chris's family was by his side in the hospital during his final days. However, Jorge's version of the story is that Leslie was a rather flirtatious flight attendant who presented him with two sets of children's pilot's wings. According to Leslie, Jorge asked her to hold his hand to keep him calm during the landing. The 2 Hearts true story reveals that the real Leslie was indeed working as a Pan Am flight attendant when she met Jorge Bacardi. Jorge asks Leslie to hold his hand during the takeoff to help keep him calm. In the movie, Jorge meets his future wife Leslie while he is on an airplane and she is working as a flight attendant. He desperately needed a double-lung transplant.ĭid Jorge Bacardi really meet his wife while she was working as a flight attendant on an airplane? In his early sixties, Jorge was on oxygen and near death's door. However, he defied expectations and survived for decades, but his breathing became increasingly labored. His parents had feared that he wouldn't live past 12 years old. Doctors had previously wrongly diagnosed him with cystic fibrosis. However, he wasn't diagnosed with the disease until he was in his fifties. What was wrong with Jorge Bacardi's lungs?Įver since he was a boy, Jorge had suffered from a life-threatening lung disease called primary ciliary dyskinesia.
