What sound does your heart make?

A recipient of a donor heart has said that it is quieter than his mechanical heart.

I remember the first artificial heart recipient: In 1982, Seattle dentist Barney Clark became the first human to receive a permanent artificial heart, a device known as the Jarvik 7. It was a really big deal.

And now, this man, 51-year-old Chris Marshall lived away from the hospital with a mechanical heart while waiting for the human donor heart. He was able to leave because of a device called an “ ‘experimental portable heart-driver’ he carted around in a backpack.”

What great strides we have made in medicine and what great love one has to offer one’s life, one’s heart, to another as he/she departs this Earthly existence.A heart that beats with sounds of extraordinary generosity and compassion.

(S-R archives photo)