An Alaskan father of seven missed the chance to get a lifesaving transplant due to flight cancelations stemming from a recent historic winter storm.
Patrick Holland, who is battling congestive heart failure, was next in life for a heart transplant at the University of Washington Medical Center given an eight-hour window to fly to Seattle, King 5 reports.
The 56-year-old managed to book a short-notice flight, but was told by Alaska Airlines staff that it was cancelled upon arriving at the airport.
Holland then booked the next available flight, which was rerouted back to Anchorage after about four hours in the air, causing him to miss the brief window for the new heart.
“I think I cried more that day than I have in my life and had exerted every emotion that I’d never had,” Holland said via King 5.
Holland still managed to view the situation positively.
“To get out of that funk, I immediately said, 'Thank God, there's going to be a family that saving someone's dad saving someone's brother, saving someone's, someone's uncle,'" Holland said via King 5.
At least 62 people have died in relation to Winter Storm Elliott, which includes 37 in Erie County, New York, as well as 25 in 11 other U.S. States.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for New York on December 26.
Temperatures plummeted and massive snow drifts hit other cities nationwide, which resulted in more than 1 million power outages, thousands of canceled flights and residents trapped inside their houses without food over the holiday weekend.