State police scoured Butler County earlier this month searching for a 10-year-old boy in danger of losing a heart he did not yet have.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Police used global positioning technology to find Sue May, left, to alert her that a donor heart was awaiting her son, John Paul. Police traced her cell phone to a concert at Slippery Rock University, where they found Ms. May and the boy. Click photo for larger image.

Doctors had just several hours on May 5 to pair John Paul May of Harrisville with a donor heart that had become available. Policy dictates that if a recipient cannot be contacted, the organ must go to the next patient on the waiting list.

"If we hadn't got that heart, I don't even know if we'd still have him," said his mother, Sue.

John Paul's dramatic deliverance to heart transplant surgery in the nick of time has since captured national attention.

"Every day he gets further back to his energetic, chipper self," said Ms. May, extending her thanks to medical staff and the state troopers who located him in time for surgery.

Unbeknownst to the UPMC Children's Hospital personnel frantically trying to locate the boy, John Paul and Ms. May were at a jazz concert at Slippery Rock University and could not hear the cell phone ring.

With time running out, state police were contacted. Cpl. James Green said he even broke into the May residence in a desperate attempt to find them.

Finally, said Cpl. Green, another trooper was able to persuade Sprint Nextel to track Ms. May's cell phone using embedded Global Positioning Satellite technology, which can only be done under "life and death" circumstances.

"I didn't even know I had that on my phone," said Ms. May.

Arriving at the concert, Cpl. Green abruptly stopped the show to address the audience, asking for Ms. May.

In the back, Ms. May raised her hand with trepidation, thinking she was illegally parked. But when the audience heard the boy had been awarded a heart, the mother and son had to wade their way to the exit through a standing ovation.

John Paul was transported by ambulance under state police escort to Oakland, where he arrived at Children's Hospital with less than 45 minutes to spare.

John Paul is recuperating "as well as can be expected," said his cardiologist, Dr. Brian Feingold.

A congenital heart defect necessitated John Paul's first transplant when he was 10 months old. Because bodies will eventually reject all transplanted hearts, said Dr. Feingold, John Paul will go through numerous hearts in his lifetime.

John Paul, who is described as a happy-go-lucky fellow, is due to be released in about a week.