Categories: Technology

Man Lives Without A Heart In His Body For Over A Year

Without a heart we can’t live, that’s what we have all been taught since we were small, but Stan Larkin has proved that this is just not the case. Stan and his brother were diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy in their teens, a condition that slowly causes heart failure. In December 2014 doctors decided that it was a risk leaving Stan’s failing heart inside of him and instead take it out and replace it with the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver, a machine that weighs 13.5-pound and uses compressed air to take over the heart’s job of pumping blood through the body.

Stan became the first person in Michigan to have his heart replaced with the machine and having lived without a heart for 17 months; Stan finally received a new heart. The heart transplant went well and Stan is now living with a heart in his body again.

While living without a heart, Stan pushed the machine to its very limit surprising doctors and developers just how amazing their technology was. Celebrated as a hero for doing so, Stan maintained a somewhat active lifestyle playing basketball and various other intense activities, something that is unheard of in the medical community. The SynCardia machine is designed for use in the case of total heart failure, which makes Stan’s active lifestyle a milestone in medical engineering. Stan’s older brother also received the machine, however, this after Stan underwent his heart transplant.

It’s amazing what technology is capable of, and we can expect even greater leaps in the development of body augmentations in the future. The mere thought of someone living a somewhat active lifestyle without a heart in their body is almost unreal. However, that is the current state of medical engineering, and we can be sure to read a bunch more incredible news in the near future.

Two weeks after his heart transplant, Stan is doing great and says that he feels like taking a jog even as he’s being interviewed. He also says that he would one day like to meet the family of the person who gave themselves for him if they would like to meet him.

Stan Larking – Living Without A Heart For 17 Months

SOURCE: [UMHEALTHSYSTEM]

Richard Darell

Richard Darell is the founder and CEO of Bit Rebels, a multifaceted online news outlet that reports daily on the latest developments in technology, social media, design and everything geek. Today this media entity welcomes more than 3.5 million unique visitors per month and is considered the go-to place for people in constant motion. As an Internet entrepreneur, he is dedicated to constantly trying to develop new ways to bring content faster and closer to the end user in a more streamlined way. His excitement for statistics has allowed him to further develop systems that continuously produce accurate and fast-paced analytics to better optimize the approach by which Bit Rebels presents news and content. His graphic design background has proven to be an important tool when designing new systems and features for Bit Rebels since the development of solid and stable code depends entirely on their structure and implemented procedures. Richard currently resides in Stockholm, Sweden and directs the Bit Rebels offices in both Stockholm and Atlanta. You can reach Richard at richard@bitrebels.com