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The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced Wednesday.
David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.
MAN GETS GENETICALLY ALTERED PIG’S HEAT TRANSPLANT IN FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND PROCEDURE
Bennett’s son praised the hospital for offering the last-ditch experiment, saying the family hoped it would help further efforts to end the organ shortage.
“We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort,” David Bennett Jr. said in a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end.”
Doctors for decades have sought to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants. Bennett, a handyman from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a candidate for this newest attempt only because he otherwise faced certain death — ineligible for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on life support, and out of other options.
FILE – In this photo provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine, members of the surgical team show the pig heart for transplant into patient David Bennett in Baltimore on Friday, Jan. 7, 2022. Bennett, the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig died Tuesday, March 8, at the University of Maryland Medical Center, two months after the groundbreaking experiment. His death was announced Wednesday.
(Mark Teske/University of Maryland School of Medicine via AP)
After the Jan. 7 operation, Bennett’s son told The Associated Press his father knew there was no guarantee it would work.
Prior attempts at such transplants — or xenotransplantation — have failed largely…
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