The Heartless Man

GoldenRivet · 12-30-14, 04:11 AM

55 year old Craig Lewis was suffering from a heart condition which caused a build up of abnormal proteins and not even a pace maker could correct the condition. As his condition worsened to it's most advanced stages, Doctors estimated that he had somewhere between 12 to 24 hours to live.

But, two Texas Doctors had developed a "Continuous flow device" which uses two turbines to function as a whole heart, a device that they had tested on 50 young calves successfully but had never been implanted in a human.

The procedure required the patient, Mr. Lewis' heart to be completely removed. In it's place, the "Continuous flow" device would be installed where it would not pump blood through the body - but would flow it as water might flow through a garden hose.

Mr Lewis was sitting up communicating with his family the day after the surgery, he lived for 5 weeks without a pulse and a heart rate of zero. But the procedure was too little too late. Mr Lewis slipped into a coma as his organs failed one at a time as a result of the advanced nature of his disease. His family made the call... turn off the device.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/texas-m...ry?id=13838596

12-30-14, 04:11 AM	#1
GoldenRivet Subsim Aviator Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 8,726 Downloads: 146 Uploads: 0	The Heartless Man 55 year old Craig Lewis was suffering from a heart condition which caused a build up of abnormal proteins and not even a pace maker could correct the condition. As his condition worsened to it's most advanced stages, Doctors estimated that he had somewhere between 12 to 24 hours to live. But, two Texas Doctors had developed a "Continuous flow device" which uses two turbines to function as a whole heart, a device that they had tested on 50 young calves successfully but had never been implanted in a human. The procedure required the patient, Mr. Lewis' heart to be completely removed. In it's place, the "Continuous flow" device would be installed where it would not pump blood through the body - but would flow it as water might flow through a garden hose. Mr Lewis was sitting up communicating with his family the day after the surgery, he lived for 5 weeks without a pulse and a heart rate of zero. But the procedure was too little too late. Mr Lewis slipped into a coma as his organs failed one at a time as a result of the advanced nature of his disease. His family made the call... turn off the device. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/texas-m...ry?id=13838596 __________________