Man Lives For Over A Year By Carrying His Heart Around In A Backpack

I’ve left the house several times without my backpack. All I left behind was a laptop and several porn mags. I survived. This guy absolutely couldn’t absent-mindedly leave his home without his backpack. He wouldn’t survive.

For heart patients, an amazing new technology has just been proven able to keep patients alive until that crucial organ becomes available. Stan Larkin, now 25, has just received a heart transplant after living for 17 months on an external total artificial heart.

Larkin and his older brother had been diagnosed when they were teens with familial cardiomyopathy, a condition that slowly causes heart failure. In December 2014, Larkin’s failing heart was removed, and he became the first patient in Michigan to be fitted with the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver, a 13.5-pound machine that uses compressed air to take over the heart’s job of pumping blood through the body.

Alright so his Jansport wasn’t filled with an actual beating heart but a device that worked like a heart and kept Larkin alive. This machine is designed for use in the case of total heart failure and in cases where the devices designed to assist in partial failure are no longer a viable option. Larking carried the 13.5 pound machine in a backpack.

The Larkin brothers finally received their transplants in 2015 and 2016 and both are doing well.

[via CNET]

Chris Illuminati avatar
Chris Illuminati is a 5-time published author and recovering a**hole who writes about running, parenting, and professional wrestling.