Suffering from congestive heart failure, the Salt Lake City resident had "died" and had been resuscitated by a pacemaker 17 times before he received a heart on March 22 at Intermountain Medical Center. On Tuesday, the 42-year-old stood in the Capitol Rotunda with other recipients and doctors involved in the state's transplant program to celebrate the milestone.

"You talk about winning the lottery. I've got a second chance. . . . I'm going to do the best I can with it," Draheim said.

Just a handful of other transplant programs in the country have performed 1,000 transplants, according to Dale Renlund, director of Utah Affiliated Hospitals Cardiac Transplant Program.

The milestone wouldn't have happened in Utah, he said, without the unique collaboration of four hospitals: IMC, University Health Care, V.A. Medical Center and Primary Children's Medical Center.

Instead of competing against each other for patients - as is done in other states, with the occasional consequence of patients being placed on wait lists too early or too late - the hospitals have one wait list for heart recipients and join forces for care and research, Renlund said.

"Our major goal from the inception of this program was to provide the best possible care for our patients," said Kent Jones, chief of IMC's cardiothoracic surgery division.

The program started 23 years ago, when 16-year-old Tony Shepard received a heart at University Hospital in March 1985. In a phone interview, the 39-year-old recalled going to his doctor in Idaho thinking he had ulcers and finding out his heart was enlarged to twice the normal size.

He was given up to eight months to live without a transplant and figured, "I might as well die trying."

Now he lives in Kemmerer, Wyo., and maintains natural gas pipelines for Exxon Mobil. "I've got a wife. I've been married for 11 years. We've got two sons. I wouldn't have any of that if I hadn't made it."

Primary Children's joined the team in 1991 and has since transplanted about 100 hearts. Wesley Hill, who was born with a heart defect, got a heart when he was 9. Now 21, the Salt Lake City resident said he was able to fulfill his dream of serving an LDS mission, and he's set to compete in the U.S. Transplant Games in basketball, tennis and ping pong in July.

As all of Tuesday's speakers did, Hill praised his donor's family. He said he hasn't met them, "but I can tell you that I love them very much."

As of last week, 31 Utahns were waiting for a heart.

hmay@sltrib.com

The Utah Affiliated Hospitals Cardiac Transplant Program:

* Has produced 200 research publications and studied several anti-rejection drugs, and the effects of gender and age on transplantation.

* Was the first to report that women who had been pregnant were more likely to reject hearts, and that older recipients were less likely to reject, said Dale Renlund, director.

* Has patients who live longer than the national average, according to Renlund. Nationally, half of transplant patients will be dead in nine years, compared to 12 years in Utah.