After spending some of his best years helping survivors of German concentration camps and protecting Nazi leaders on trial for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, an American World War II veteran is now believed to have become his country’s oldest known organ donor.
The story of 100-year-old Dale Steele, who died in February after a head injury forced him to go on life support, demonstrates how the health of donors is a more important consideration than their age, according to Live On Nebraska, an organ procurement organization in his home state.
“Mr. Steele… is a powerful reminder that generosity has no age limit,” Live On Nebraska President and CEO Kyle Herber said in a statement.
As Herber’s organization put it, after graduating from high school and being drafted into military service, Steele served in France, Germany, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia toward the end of World War II.
Their duties were to search for remains of the Nazi army and help survivors of German concentration camps return to their homes.
Live On Nebraska detailed how Steele subsequently earned a promotion to first sergeant and was assigned to guard defendants imprisoned at the Nuremberg trials, including convicted war criminal Hermann Göring, the Nazis’ second-in-command.
He eventually returned home to Bassett, Nebraska, and married his wife, Doris, with whom he had four children and as many grandchildren during their 72-year marriage, Live On Nebraska reported. Steele supported his family by raising cattle on his ranch, running a farming cooperative, and later selling irrigation and grain handling equipment.
Steele suffered a head injury in February and ended up on life support, his son, Roger, told Nebraska news outlet KMTV. Roger Steele described how Live On Nebraska called him at that time and said, “We would like your dad to donate his liver.”
Roger Steele said he was surprised by the request and responded: “It’s over 100 years old.”
But Dr. Lee Morrow, medical director of Live On Nebraska, explained to KMTV that donor livers, regardless of their age, are essentially only a few years old if they are healthy, because that particular organ has the unique ability to renew its cells throughout life.
“His liver is about three years old; my liver is about three years old; and that 100-year-old man…his liver (is) about three years old,” Morrow told the station.
Roger Steele attributed his father’s longevity and health to the physical work he did throughout his life, KMTV noted. He added that a staple of Dale Steele’s diet was vegetables from his own garden.
For his part, Morrow told KMTV that applying warm blood perfusion to Dale Steele’s liver also positioned him to become, as Live On Nebraska claimed, the oldest known organ donor in the United States. That technique has been used for years on donated kidneys, but was recently implemented with livers and other organs, which in turn expanded the pool of viable donors.
Nebraska Medicine – Nebraska Medical Center recovered Dale Steele’s liver. He was successfully transplanted a day later, and Live On Nebraska said the procedure had brought “new life to a grateful recipient.”
A statement Live On Nebraska attributed to Steele’s grandson, Scott, said that was the most appropriate legacy there was.
“Dale was always very helpful and considerate of everyone around him, both friends and strangers,” Scott Steele’s statement read. “We believe he would do almost anything he could for someone in need.”
