In Pittsburgh, Thomas Gaidosh, 47, a burly, 6-ft. 3-in. factory worker and father of two, languished in his hospital bed last month, struggling for his life. For weeks, doctors at Presbyterian-University Hospital had been searching for a donor heart to replace his debilitated one. Time was running out. Across the state, in the chocolate capital of Hershey, Anthony Mandia, 44, was losing a similar battle. Mandia, a Philadelphia recreation-center director, had a history of coronaries, and now his heart was deteriorating rapidly, but no donor could be found. On the West Coast, Richard Dallara, 33, an auto mechanic from Sonoma, Calif.,...
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