Surgeons in Edmonton performed 18 transplants that would normally take place over weeks in only 56 hours, giving 15 people new leases on life, doctors announced Wednesday.

Teams led by six surgeons performed the transplants at the University of Alberta Hospital in early May, on patients from Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The hospital would normally do that total number of transplants over a month, hospital officials said at a press conference in Edmonton.

To accomplish the feat, staff in four to six operating rooms worked at top speed, while hundreds of people worked around the clock to manage the surge in patients needing intensive-care beds.

Time was of the essence because organs like the heart and kidneys lose function with every hour after removal.

"In this situation, there were several donors that occurred at the same time within a few days, several of them locally, others at different places across the country," said Dr. Norm Kneteman, the director of the Capital Health Region's transplant program.

"We happened to have the best match of recipients for those organs."

The surgeries performed were:

• Two combination heart and double lung transplants.
• Two double lung transplants.
• Two heart transplants.
• Three liver transplants.
• One combination kidney and pancreas transplant.
• Five kidney transplants.

Most of the recipients are doing well, Kneteman said, adding that it was too early for all of them to be considered out of the woods.

John Kaminsky, 60, was among the patients. The Vancouver man, who had a potentially fatal condition called pulmonary fibrosis that had damaged the three organs, received a new heart and lungs during an eight-hour procedure.

At the press conference Wednesday, he wiped away tears as he thanked the donor's family and transplant team.

"There must be a lot of love for one's fellow man behind this," Kaminsky said.

With files from the Canadian Press