Denovchek gives Jamie life-saving living liver transplant

June 19, 2015 at 7:27p.m.

NILES

David Denovchek most likely saved Jamie’s life.

On May 27, Denovchek, 28, of Niles, gave Jamie, 4, of Trumbull County, 25 percent of the left lobe of his liver.

“It is an amazing feeling to have given Jamie a chance at life,” he said.

A little more than three weeks after the transplant, Denovchek is home feeling good but going crazy because of the physical restrictions - he can’t lift more than a gallon of milk or drive his car - imposed on him because of his surgery.

Jamie remains in serious but stable condition in Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital of UPMC, but is making slow but steady progress.

She was awakened from an induced coma this week and opened her eyes.

“The whites of her eyes were white again,” said Marilyn Pape, department manager for foster care and adoption at Trumbull County Children Services, which has had custody of Jamie for most of her life.

Jamie was born with biliary atresias, a condition in which the fetus fails to develop an adequate pathway for bile to drain from the liver to the intestine, resulting in a yellow discoloration to her skin and the whites of her eyes.

Her eye whites and skin returning to their normal colors are signs the transplanted liver is working, said Pape.

“She’s a fighter. ... She’s going to come through this,” Pape said.

Denovchek, a registered veterinary technician at Family Pet Center-All Creatures Animal Hospital in Champion, says he has done things in the past to help people but has kept them to himself.

For instance, he said on Valentine’s Day he brings flowers for each of his 30-some female co-workers.

“I like to make people smile,” he said.

“That’s how I live my life. I do things to help people in need. If I have something and someone else needs it, they are welcome to it,” Denovchek.

“Jamie’s story touched me,” he said.