Woman holds her own heart in her hands during surgery

New Jersey - Pictures of Salberg show her holding her heart in her two hands as she smiles

Forty-eight-year-old Lisa Salberg made a strange request to the doctors before undergoing a heart transplant surgery. She wanted them to save her damaged heart.
Pictures of Salberg show her holding her heart in her two hands as she smiles.
Salberg was suffering from a dangerous heart disease for 12 years. As her complications grew and her heart began to fail, she went through a lifesaving transplant surgery.
Her old heart was replaced with a new one.
However, before going through a surgery she requested the doctors to save her damaged heart.
"We were friends for 48 years," ABC News quoted her saying about her heart.
Her transplant surgeon at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Dr. Margarita Camacho, said she was surprised by the request.
"I've never had anybody ask that. The first thing I thought was, 'How wonderful she wanted to do that,'" Camacho told ABC News.
 Salberg said she was surprised when she held it.
"I was struck by the density and the weight to it," Salberg said. "It was really, really heavy."