Gary Onufer, a patient at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvanian who previously lived without a heartbeat, was released from the hospital yesterday, according to an Associated Press report.
Onufer, 46, received a Total Artificial Heart , an external device that is attached to the chest cavity in order to facillitate the pumping of blood, on Feb. 12.
The procedure made HUP the eighth hospital in the Northeast region to perform the procedure, and the 15th in the world.
"I feel like I could do a triathlon right now," Onufer told the AP as he left the hospital.
His release followed a successful heart transplant on March 11.
Onufer first came to HUP while suffering from congestive heart failure, the severity of which necessitated the somewhat radical procedure, which was designed to extent the lives of dire patients awaiting human transplants.
"Gary's actually flat-lined right now," head surgeon Rohinton Morris said at a press conference Feb. 19 after the Total Artificial Heart transplant was made.
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