Motivated powerlifter shows what a donor heart can do

It’s a vanishingly small Venn diagram: The people who have undergone a heart transplant, lost the use of one pectoral muscle, and this month won gold in two event classes at a world powerlifting competition. 

Scott Dolan, 71, really is one of a kind. 

This past week, the resident of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, drove to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle for a checkup with his cardiologist. A backpack held his gleaming hardware: two saucer-sized medals and a plaque commemorating his induction into the World Association of Benchers and Dead Lifters Hall of Fame (WABDL).

For decades, Dolan has competitively lifted weights and brought home trophies. But these two golds are special, he said. They are testament to what can be achieved after a heart transplant. He received a donor heart in April 2023. 

“There were years of hard work and dedication and sacrifice, and then came the transplant,” he recalled. “It would’ve been easy to think I’ll never get back to lifting competitively. People would say, ‘At least you’re alive.’ But I told my wife, ‘The surgeons didn’t take my dedication. They didn’t take my drive. I can do this.’”

Dr. Salpy Pamboukian, Dolan’s cardiologist at the UW Medicine Heart Institute, marveled at his enthusiasm and tenacity. 

“We typically encounter patients at a low point in their lives. Needing a transplant is not a situation anyone wants to be in,” she said. “After a transplant, I think a lot of patients feel like they’re a certain age, they’ve had a serious health challenge, maybe they couldn’t even walk across the room (because of heart failure). Now, with a new heart, they would rather be careful and protective than explore possibilities.

“But we don’t do transplants to keep people alive so they can sit on the sofa for the next 15 or 20 years,” Pamboukian said. “I tell patients, ‘Your heart is working better than the rest of you. It’s the rest of you that has to catch up.’” 

Dolan’s resolve should inspire transplant recipients to pursue their ambitions, she added.

The pursuit of competitive lifting is even more impressive with Dolan’s long history of heart trouble and the loss of his right pectoral muscle, which happened in the context of his transplant. 

Powerlifting was a hobby for more than 30 years during Dolan’s careers in the military and the correctional industry. He trained routinely and lifted in 40 events — even as a genetic disposition to developing arterial plaque narrowed his cardiac vessels and necessitated two bypass surgeries and the placement of 28 stents. 

In early 2023, UW Medicine cardiologists determined that no more stents could be placed.  Dolan was implanted with a pump device to help his failing heart, and soon after became a candidate for transplant. 

Amazingly, a donor organ matched within two days of his being listed. The downside was that the heart pump, which had been tucked behind Dolan’s right pectoral muscle, needed to be removed immediately to accommodate the transplant’s tight window of viability. Time didn’t allow for the pump’s conventional removal or the pec’s immediate repair.

Two weeks later, Dolan moved to the Seattle condo where UW Medicine’s out-of-town transplant recipients stay during their first three months after surgery. There he spied a set of dumbbells that, with steady encouragement from weightlifting buddies, started his drive to recapture his passion. 

“I considered reconstructive surgery for the pectoral, but I also thought I could train around it,” he said. 

And he did. At the lifting competition this month, Dolan (5 feet, 9 inches and 194 pounds) bench-pressed 405 pounds — an astonishing feat for someone with one functioning pectoral muscle. He deadlifted 230 pounds. Each was enough to win the event class of disabled men ages 60 to 74. 

“My lifting partner had set WABDL’s world record for 90-year-olds, and before he died, I told him I was coming after his records,” Dolan said with a smile. “So that’s my new goal. And I can tell (transplant patients) that life’s not over just because you had this procedure. You just have to want it. I’m in the hall (of fame), but that doesn’t mean that I’m done.” 

For details about UW Medicine, please visit http://uwmedicine.org/about.