His burden does not pull: an American lived with an artificial heart in a backpack

Фото: Depositphotos

In Michigan, 25-year-old Stan Larkin 555 spent days without his own heart, waiting for his transplantation. All this time, the young man avoided serious physical exertion, but at the same time did not quit playing basketball.

Stan became the first patient in the state of Michigan to be fitted with a special device called the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver. This device performs the function of the heart. It pumps blood in the body using compressed air. The weight of this device is 6 kg, so the young man constantly carried it in his backpack.

Stan and his brother Dominic were diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a disease that leads to heart failure, as teenagers.

In December, 2014, Stan urgently had to remove a failing heart, which had nothing to replace. The transplant was made in May 2016, and today the patient has fully recovered.

Brother Stan, Dominic, was more fortunate. He also had his heart removed and replaced with an artificial apparatus, however, he did not pass with him for long. Just a few weeks later, Dominica was transplanted a donor heart. Stan lived without a heart for a year and a half.

In the United States today, more than 121 thousands of people are expecting heart transplants. According to statistics, an 22 patient dies in the US every day who never got a donor heart.

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