Second Recipient of Penn State Heart Dies After 13 Months
HERSHEY, Pa. — A laid-off factory worker who became the second recipient of the Penn State artificial heart died Friday of a chest infection after being kept alive 13 months by the device, a spokesman for Hershey Medical Center said.
Robert Cresswell, 49, of Huntingdon in south-central Pennsylvania, died shortly before 9 a.m., spokesman John Vastyan said.
The hospital said last month that Cresswell’s family had requested that no extraordinary measures, including the use of breathing assistance equipment, be taken to keep him alive if his condition worsened.
Only two other people lived longer than Cresswell while supported by an artificial heart, and both of them had received the Jarvik-7 pump.
Cresswell received the Penn State heart on March 17, 1986, after his own heart failed and his body rejected a transplanted donor human heart.
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