Woman lived to 99 with most organs on wrong side of body

SALEM, Ore. (AP) " Cameron Walker's medical students were examining the heart of a cadaver when they noticed the blood vessels were different. When they opened the abdominal cavity, they discovered all the other organs were on the wrong side.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Walker said the unusual blood vessels by the heart helped compensate for the rare condition.

The discovery astounded Walker, all the more so because Rose Marie Bentley, whose body the students were examining in his Oregon Health & Science University class, lived to age 99.

People with the condition tend to have life-threatening ailments.

Bentley's daughter, Louise Allee, said no doctor ever informed her mother of the condition, even though one couldn't find her appendix.