64-Year-Old Retired Letter Carrier Had HeartMate II LVAD for Four Years Prior to Receiving the Total Artificial Heart at Advocate Christ Medical Center.
SynCardia Systems, Inc., manufacturer of the world’s first and only FDA, Health Canada and CE (Europe) approved Total Artificial Heart, announced today that Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois, has discharged its first patient to receive the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart. Leroy Haynes, 64, left the hospital using the Freedom® portable driver on Sept. 13, to resume life at home with his wife Pat while he waits for a matching donor heart.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Haynes told his doctors and nurses during a news conference with his wife by his side. “We’re just simple people. We’ve worked all of our lives and it seems saying thank you is not good enough… There’s not a person that didn’t smile, give me encouragement, tell me I’m going home, and now that day has come.”
Haynes, a letter carrier who retired from the post office in 2007, had been suffering from cardiomyopathy, a disease that weakens and enlarges the heart muscle. In 2008, he received a HeartMate II left ventricular assist device (LVAD). An LVAD is a continuous-flow, mechanical pump that is implanted adjacent to the heart to help the left ventricle pump blood. However, this April, Haynes was admitted to the hospital after his condition began to rapidly deteriorate.
Over several weeks, he experienced persistent ventricular tachycardia (a fast heart rhythm that starts in the lower part of the heart), which caused continuous shocks from his implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). To save his life, on May 8, doctors removed Haynes’ failing heart and LVAD, and implanted their first SynCardia Total Artificial Heart to bridge him to a donor heart transplant… read more
•View news coverage of Advocate’s first discharge
•Watch videos about Advocate’s first discharge
•Read press release from Advocate