According to the booklet Facts about Heart and Heart-Lung Transplants available from the National Institute of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute:

Donors are individuals who are brain dead, meaning that the brain shows no signs of life while the person's body is being kept alive by a machine. Donors have often died as a result of an automobile accident, a stroke, a gunshot wound, suicide, or a severe head injury. Most hearts come from those who die before age 45. Donor organs are located through the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

Not enough organs are available for transplant. At any given time, almost 3,500 to 4,000 patients are waiting for a heart or heart-lung transplant. A patient may wait months for a transplant. More than 25 percent do not live long enough. Yet, only a fraction of those who could donate organs actually do.

When a donor is pronounced dead, information about the donor is sent to UNOS for matching with patients awaiting transplants. Recipients are matched based on height, weight and blood type and selected based on need and length of time waiting. After surgeons remove the heart from the donor, it is carefully transported to Sutter Memorial Hospital, where the heart transplant team performs the operation.

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