Kelly_Perkins
Kelly Perkins
American heart transplant recipient
Kelly Perkins is an American heart transplant recipient known for climbing mountains to inspire others and promote organ donation. She has set world records as the first ever heart transplant recipient to scale the most famous mountains in the world.
Perkins has selected peaks of many famous mountains, with both personal and cause related significance, since her heart transplant operation in 1995.[1] A good example is her climb of El Capitan in Yosemite Park, with its natural heart shaped cut-out, where she was recently quoted as saying, "We thought, how great would that be to climb straight through the heart of El Capitan... in a symbolic way we are tugging on the heart strings of people to be educated about organ donation".[2]