The Nation - News from Feb. 3, 1986

Surgeons began an operation in Pittsburgh to implant a temporary Jarvik-7 artificial heart into a 39-year-old man with a deteriorating heart, hospital officials said. The identity and hometown of the western Pennsylvania man was withheld at the request of his family, said Tom Chakurda, a spokesman for Presbyterian-University Hospital. “Obviously, if someone needs a Jarvik, he’s critically ill and hours within death,” said hospital spokeswoman Ann Metzger. She would not say how long the man had been hospitalized. Chakurda said the man had suffered a major heart attack two weeks ago and was in a “life-threatening situation.”