100-year-old WWII veteran becomes oldest organ donor in US history

OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) - A 100-year-old World War II veteran from Nebraska has become the oldest organ donor in United States history.

Dale Steele, a 100-year-old veteran, suffered a head injury in February and was placed on life support. His son, Roger Steele, says he was stunned when Live On Nebraska, an Omaha-based organ procurement organization, first mentioned his father’s potential donation.

“‘We’d like your dad to donate his liver,’ and when she said that, I said, ‘He’s over 100 years old,’” Roger Steele said.

Born in Ainsworth, Nebraska, Dale Steele lived a life defined by hard work and service. His son shared stories of his father serving in World War II, liberating concentration camps and standing guard during the Nuremberg Trials.

“He was a gentleman in the full sense of the word,” Roger Steele said.

He credits his father’s longevity in part to a lifestyle rooted in physical labor and homegrown food. Dale Steele, who was married for 72 years, worked in agriculture his entire life, and his family regularly ate vegetables from his garden.

“He came from an age when people worked very hard, and I think that’s a substitute for fitness as we define it today,” Roger Steele said.

Live On Nebraska says the age of a liver donor matters far less than overall health, pointing to the organ’s unique ability to regenerate cells throughout a person’s entire life. Dr. Lee Morrow, the organization’s chief medical officer, explained that constant cell renewal means a donor’s liver is effectively only a few years old, regardless of the person’s age.

“Your liver is about 3 years old, my liver is about 3 years old and that 100-year-old donor, his liver was about 3 years old,” Morrow said.

Morrow says donor organizations have used warm blood perfusion on donated kidneys for years but only recently began applying the technique to other organs, including livers. That advancement has helped expand the pool of viable donors.

“If you go back in time just a few years ago, we weren’t really doing organ donors over 65,” he said.

The Steele family has not yet been contacted by the person who received Dale Steele’s liver, but they were told the recipient was able to go home just five days after the successful transplant.

Roger Steele says the experience changed his entire view on being an organ donor, and he plans to sign up himself.

If you want to find out more about becoming an organ donor, you can visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Transplantation at organdonor.gov.

The previous record for the oldest organ donor belonged to 98-year-old Orville Allen, of Missouri.