Roberto Onreita
Roberto Onreita was born in Rauch, Argentina. He is 42 years old and started to swim as an athlete, 5 years ago. He also plays volleyball in a local league but never trained. In 2005, when he was 35 years old, his liver had a fulminant failure and he needed an urgent liver’s transplant. That was his only chance to live. He entered in a national emergency list to be transplanted quickly. Everything went very well, he had a very good recovery.
A month later, he was working in Rauch, in a veterinary where he has worked for 22 years. After four months, some studies indicated that he had a lymphatic cancer. He had to do chemotherapy, there was no alternative. He started with the chemotherapy sessions. Cancer was expiring but the treatment resulted in liver rejection. So after six months he had to face a second liver’s transplant. Fortunately, he made a quick recovery and his life changed radically.
He has won several gold medals in swimming at the Argentine and Latin American transplant Games. In 2009, at the 17th World Transplant Games, in Australia he won a bronze medal in 200 meter freestyle and a bronze medal in volleyball.
After having participated in a new edition of World Transplant Games, in Durban South Africa, Roberto Onreita won five medals swimming – (1- gold, 3- silver, and 1- bronze). Roberto won 8 medals in 3 World Transplant Games.
But his greatest achievement was to reach the summit of Lanin Volcano in January 2012 with other transplanted people: Teresa Paniceres, Rosaura Escudero and Mariano Rosa Spinelli.
His message is : "We all can donate organs, everyone can receive."
Submitted by Anonymous
