Man Alive Without a Heart and No Pulse!

The continuous-flow device consists of 2 turbine-like blood pumps implanted to replace the 2 sides of the patient's removed heart. These 2 pumps act as a man-made substitute for the natural heart. The left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) used are manufactured by Thoratec Corporation (Pleasanton, Calif.) and were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in January 2010 for assisting the failing left ventricle (the heart's main pumping chamber) in patients suffering from terminal heart failure.

Prior to using the device on Lewis, the researchers had first experimented with it on 38 calves at their animal research facility. Today, a calf named Abigail resides at the facility with one of their devices and no pulse.

However, aside from listening to the machine itself, the lack of pulse makes it hard to tell if a patient is alive or dead. According to the institute, even EKG machines would register a person using the new heart as dead.

The device (Courtesy The Texas Heart Institute):

Posted by JacobSloan                                                                                          

 Perhaps in the future, we’ll spend our youth — i.e. the first hundred or so years of our lives — with a heart and a pulse, and our next couple hundred without them. DesignTaxi writes:

Two doctors from the Texas Heart Institute successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a device—proving that it is possible for your body to be kept alive without a heart, or a pulse.

The turbine-like device, that are simple whirling rotors, developed by the doctors does not beat like a heart, rather provides a ‘continuous flow’ like a garden hose.

If you listened with a stethoscope, you wouldn’t hear a heartbeat. If you examined [the] arteries, there’s no pulse. Hooked up to an EKG, [he'd] be flat-lined.”