Clark spent his last 112 days in the hospital and suffered considerably from complications and the discomfort of having compressed air pumped in and out of his body. Because Jarvik’s artificial heart was intended to be permanent, the Clark case drew worldwide attention. DeVries implanted the Jarvik-7 into Barney Clark. By 1982, he was conducting animal trials at the University of Utah with his Jarvik-7 artificial heart. Jarvik had decided to study medicine and engineering after his father died of heart disease. In the early 1980s, however, a pioneering new scientist resumed efforts to develop a viable artificial heart. Seven more failed attempts were made, and many doctors lost faith in the possibility of replacing the human heart with a prosthetic substitute.

However, soon after the human heart was transplanted into his chest, he died from infection. The temporary plastic-and-Dacron heart extended Karp’s life for the three days it took doctors to find him a donor heart. Karp was the first person in history to have his diseased heart replaced by an artificial heart. On April 4, 1969, a historic operation was performed by surgeon Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute on Haskell Karp, a patient whose heart was on the brink of total collapse and to whom no donor heart had become available. However, the demand for donor hearts always exceeded availability, and thousands died every year while waiting for healthy hearts to become available. In the late 1960s, hope was given to patients with irreparably damaged hearts when heart-transplant operations began. After a few hours, however, blood becomes damaged by the pumping and oxygenation. In this procedure, which is still used today, the machine temporarily takes over heart and lung function, allowing doctors to operate extensively on these organs. In 1953, an artificial heart-lung machine was employed successfully for the first time during an operation on a human patient. In the late 20th century, scientists began developing a pump to temporarily supplant heart action. The 61-year-old dentist spent the last four months of his life in a hospital bed at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City, attached to a 350-pound console that pumped air in and out of the aluminum-and-plastic implant through a system of hoses. On March 23, 1983, Barney Clark dies 112 days after becoming the world’s first recipient of a permanent artificial heart.

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