Claire Sylvia, a former Hull resident who received the first heart-lung transplant in New England and wrote about her soul-changing experiences in a best-selling memoir, died yesterday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She was 69.
Ms. Sylvia, who suffered from incurable primary pulmonary hypertension, received the heart and lungs of an anonymous 18-year-old man at Yale-New Haven Hospital in May 1988.
After she began to take on new personality traits and cravings, Ms. Sylvia, a professional dancer, tracked down the family of her donor in Saco, Maine. She learned that her donor, a house painter who was killed in a motorcycle accident, possessed many of the characteristics she had taken on after her operation.
In 1997, Ms. Sylvia published the best-selling memoir, “A Change of Heart: A Memoir,’’ which chronicled her experiences after her transplant, and her belief that she shared the soul of her donor.
The memoir was later into a film starring Jane Seymour.
Ms. Sylvia rode the wave of her media blitz that followed the publication of her memoir, telling her story on Oprah, The Today Show, 20/20, and many other shows.
Cohen, who was 16 at the time her mother received the transplant, said she remembers changes in her mother’s behavior.
“The first thing she wanted when she woke up was a beer, and she never liked beer,’’ Cohen said.
Cohen said her mother, who continued her career as a professional dancer after her surgery and even appeared as a stand-in dancer in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, had more energy after her surgery.
“Her life improved vastly,’’ she said.
Ms. Sylvia received a kidney transplant from a former dance partner in 1998, which was necessary because of the strain of her previous transplant, Cohen said.
Besides her daughter, Ms. Sylvia leaves two grandchildren, her former husband, Ira Gavrin of Marlborough, N.H., and her sister, Marilyn Kurtz of Lynbrook, N.Y.
Another former husband, David Berman, formerly of Braintree, died in 2005.
The above obituary and photo were printed in the Boston Globe on August 20, 2009