Tucson Heart Patient Drummond Allowed to Return Home
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TUCSON — Michael Drummond, who made medical history when he was kept alive with an artificial heart until a donor heart could be found, has been allowed to go home, his doctor said Wednesday.
Dr. Jack G. Copeland, the University of Arizona Medical Center surgeon who performed the transplant operation, said he decided to let Drummond, 26, go home to Phoenix because he was making such good progress.
“He wanted to go home and things were going so well, we figured, ‘What the heck?’ ” Copeland said. Drummond had been staying at a Tucson apartment near University Medical Center to get outpatient checkups. He was discharged from the hospital Nov. 14.
Drummond survived nine days on a Jarvik-7 artificial heart before getting a donor heart Sept. 7. He was the first person to receive a Jarvik heart as a temporary “bridge to life,” doctors said.
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