[pawn]

Two months ago, my dad died of a heart attack. One thing I've been wondering, and I'm hoping one of you can tell me, is why they couldn't have put him on some sort of machine until a replacement was found. This seems like as good a place as any to ask.

They said he was still alive when he got to the hospital, just barely, but the heart had too much damage to recover. My suspicions have been that either he died before he got there, and they didn't want to tell us that, or that they chose not to save him for some reason relating to insurance not being good enough. Neither is a rosey picture.

[sosuke]

I'm sorry for your loss. My dad had one recently, a real slap in the face to change his habits, and he recovered well enough to keep speaking and remaining cane mobile. Gosh now that I think about it that was last September.

I've thought about the same thing though. I think it has to do with brain damage, broken ribs from CPR and other related issues to keep someone alive.

When I saw this pulseless heart a few years back I imagined we'd be seeing them more and more to the point of, as you alluded too, being able to hook someone up to a "heart."

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137029208/heart-with-no-beat-o...

I can't give you any opinion on the "why" though.

[jamesblonde]

Carmat are making the most progress with an artificial heart, but it is only in clinical trials. The battery is a backpack with a power cord fed in behind your ear. Unfortunately for your dad, we just aren't there yet with fixing a broken heart. In 10 to 20 years, probably.

[naveen99]

there is a machine. It's called ECMO http://content.onlinejacc.org/mobile/article.aspx?articleid=...

i am sorry they were not able to save your dad.