Vol. 18, No. 3
Fall 2008
A Gift... Beyond the Gift of Life
12 Winthrop Specialists Named to New York Magazine’s 2008 “Best Doctors” List
Cancer Center for Kids Moves to a New Home
Friends & Benefactors Annual Reception
Winthrop Helps Postal Clerk Get Some Sleep
Winthrop: A Gateway to a Top-Rated Kidney Transplant Program
DiStasio Family Makes Donation to NICU
The Center for Advanced Care of Chronic Conditions
New Center for the Advanced Care of Chronic Conditions: Easing Patients’ Burdens through a Single Coordinated Plan of Care
Golfing for the CCFK
Annual Gala Celebrates Winthrop’s Passion for Care without Compromise
CCFK Families Celebrate Life
Unique Program Helps New Mothers Cope
Saving Lives in Bolivia
Winthrop’s New Welcoming Ambassadors
Tenth Annual Cancer Survivors Day Celebrates Life
Bay’s Big Bash Does it Again!
Spizz Family Supports CCFK
Pediatric Unit Receives Quilt Donation
Amanda Styles Cirelli Foundation Makes Generous Donation to CCFK
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When Rocco Crimeni and Sal Coico go on a weekend-
long hunting trip, it is not your usual father-son
outing. In fact, Rocco and Sal were brought together
by the most extraordinary of circumstances just
six months ago when a tragedy united them in ways
that neither of them could have anticipated.
 Vincenzo Crimeni
And Rocky, as
his family and friends
call him, was reeling
in shock following the collapse of his 27-year-old
son Vincenzo during a softball game in Mineola.
When Rocky and his wife Laurie learned that
their comatose son’s heart was fatally damaged by
an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), and
that extensive testing by neurologists at Winthrop-
University Hospital showed no sign of
activity in Vincenzo’s brain, they had to
make a monumental decision: whether to
donate Vin’s organs to other patients in
need of life-saving transplants.
Remarkably, Vincenzo’s sister
Angela and Sal’s sister Vincenza are friends and
co-workers at a hair salon in Plainview.
Though grief stricken over her brother’s condition,
Angela told her parents, “I know someone
who needs a kidney transplant.”
The family was visited at Winthrop by Rich
Mullane of the New York Organ Donor Network.
“He was so kind,” said Vincenzo’s mom
Laurie. “He told us that as donors, we could submit
the name of anyone we wanted considered as
a potential designated recipient, but he also
cautioned us that the chance of a match in a
non-family member was about one in a million.”
In considering the option of organ donation,
the family based their decision on what they
knew Vincenzo would have wanted.
“Vin’s good friend Chris had recently donated
bone marrow to help save someone with
leukemia,” Laurie remembers. “And Chris told
us that when Vin heard about it, he said, ‘wow,
that’s really cool… I wish I could do that for
somebody – give them the gift of life.’ That gave
us our answer.”
Things moved very quickly at that point.
Angela contacted Sal and his family to secure
the details necessary for him to be considered a
potential recipient by the Organ Donor Network,
and Sal was whisked into New York City for testing
at a hospital where organ transplants are
performed. Against all odds, the tests determined
that Vin and Sal were not only a match… they
were a perfect match.
The next day, one of Vin’s kidneys was transplanted
into Sal, the other kidney to a father in
Westchester, and his liver to another family man
in Manhattan.
“I was in the hospital after the transplant
and I told the doctors that I wanted to go to pay
my respects to the family of my organ donor,” Sal
said, “but they wouldn’t let me leave the hospital
to visit with the family.” Sal’s mother and father
both visited the Crimenis at Vin’s wake to offer
their deepest condolences – and their gratitude
for having saved their son’s life.
Sal had been diagnosed with Alport
Syndrome, an inherited disease, as a small child,
and the family knew that he would likely require
a kidney transplant by the time he was in his
early 20s. Sure enough, within the
past year Sal’s kidneys had begun to
fail, he was on heavy medication, and
was spending three days a week in
dialysis. Sal’s brother-in-law Tony
underwent 10 months of testing in an
effort to donate a kidney to Sal, but
was ultimately denied as a candidate
by the doctors.
“I had become so tired, I could
hardly do anything,” Sal remembers.
“Then they started the dialysis, which
helped, but on the days that I had
dialysis, I spent five hours at the
Center and was exhausted for the
rest of the day anyway.” A kidney
transplant became his only hope for
the chance to lead a normal life.
The transplant of Vin’s kidney was
unusually successful, with the kidney
showing signs of normal function while
Sal was still in the operating room.
Following the surgery, Sal was
instructed to stay home and avoid
public places, germs and potential
infections due to the immunosuppressive
drugs that are necessary after an
organ transplant, but he was eager to
meet, and thank, the family whose
brave decision saved his life.
“We were invited to visit him at
home,” Laurie says. And when they did,
the families became fast friends and, in
essence, a new extended family.
“Vincenzo brought us all together,”
Rocco says. “Part of my son is
still alive, and we know that we not
only helped Sal, but we helped his
family and generations to come.”
The Crimeni family has not met
the gentlemen who received Vincenzo’s
other kidney or liver, but feel great
solace in knowing that they saved all
three families from having to suffer a
tragic loss like the one that they experienced
with their son.
“People told us that organ donation
would help us to
cope with our loss,”
Laurie said. “It was hard
to imagine at the time,
but we know now that it
is true.”
The Crimeni family
and Coico family have
become one big family in
the months since the
transplant took place.
They celebrate special
occasions together and
have forged special bonds
with one another.
 Angela Crimeni and her “new brother,” Sal Coico.
New cravings for lemonade soon
followed – another of Vin’s favorites –
and the families just continue to marvel
in the wonder of it all.
The men in the families have
taken to hunting and fishing together,
spending weekends upstate enjoying
their newfound camaraderie.
Sal is stronger and healthier, and
his doctors say that his progress to this
point is well ahead of the ideal projections
for recovery time. He no longer
requires dialysis, and has been weaned
down to minimal doses of medication.
 Sal Coico (second from right) with his father Lou Coico (far
right), and (from left) brother-in-law Tony Suppa, and new
family members Rocco and Nick Crimeni.
Likewise, the Crimenis have given
a gift to Winthrop-University Hospital
in an effort to help fight heart disease.
After Vincenzo’s death, Vin’s
friends held a fundraiser at a local
pub and collected $3,100 which they
gave to Laurie and Rocco in Vin’s
memory. The Crimenis donated the
money to Winthrop to create the new
Vincenzo Crimeni Cardiac Disease
Prevention Fund, which will be dedicated
to cardiac education and testing
for young adults.
“When Vin was in a crisis, the
people at Winthrop did everything
imaginable to try to save him,” Laurie
says. “And when we were suffering
through profound uncertainty and
fear, they supported us in ways well
beyond the amazing medical care they
provided. They cared for us as people,
and supported us through the most
agonizing time of our lives.”
The Crimenis are not new to the
Winthrop community, however. Both
Angela and Vincenzo were born at
Winthrop (which was then Nassau
Hospital), and Angela has been a
Volunteer at Winthrop since 2005. In
addition, Rocky has been a patient of
Kevin P. Marzo, MD, Chief of the
Division of Cardiology at Winthrop,
since 2002.
“Rocky had a heart attack about
six years ago,” says Laurie, “and the
ambulance took him to the nearest
hospital. But when the doctors there
realized the severity of his condition,
they immediately transferred him to
Winthrop, and by the time I got inside
of the Hospital, after following the
ambulance there, he was already up in
the Cardiac Catheterization Lab having
four stents put in.”
“Winthrop has supported us
through the most trying of times,”
said Laurie, “and we will do whatever
we can to try to prevent other families
from having to go through what
we went through with Vincenzo.”
In addition to supporting early
screening and education at Winthrop,
Laurie and Rocco have become ardent
supporters of organ donation, and
hope that their story will help to
inspire others to give the gift of life.
For more information about
becoming an organ donor, please call
the New York Organ Donor Network at
1-800-GIFT-4-NY (1-800-443-8469) or
visit www.donatelifeny.org.agonizing time of our lives.”
The Crimenis are not new to the
Winthrop community, however. Both
Angela and Vincenzo were born at
Winthrop (which was then Nassau
Hospital), and Angela has been a
Volunteer at Winthrop since 2005. In
addition, Rocky has been a patient of
Kevin P. Marzo, MD, Chief of the
Division of Cardiology at Winthrop,
since 2002.
“Rocky had a heart attack about
six years ago,” says Laurie, “and the
ambulance took him to the nearest
hospital. But when the doctors there
realized the severity of his condition,
they immediately transferred him to
Winthrop, and by the time I got inside
of the Hospital, after following the
ambulance there, he was already up in
the Cardiac Catheterization Lab having
four stents put in.”
“Winthrop has supported us
through the most trying of times,”
said Laurie, “and we will do whatever
we can to try to prevent other families
from having to go through what
we went through with Vincenzo.”
In addition to supporting early
screening and education at Winthrop,
Laurie and Rocco have become ardent
supporters of organ donation, and
hope that their story will help to
inspire others to give the gift of life.
For more information about
becoming an organ donor, please call
the New York Organ Donor Network at
1-800-GIFT-4-NY (1-800-443-8469) or
visit www.donatelifeny.org.
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