Artificial Heart Implanted: Jarvik Saves Barney Clark

Barney Clark's own heart was dying, and no donor organ was coming. The 61-year-old retired dentist from Seattle became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart on December 2, 1982, when surgeon William DeVries implanted the Jarvik-7 device at the University of Utah Medical Center. The seven-hour surgery replaced Clark's failing ventricles with a pneumatic pump that would keep him alive for 112 days. The Jarvik-7 was the creation of Robert Jarvik, who had spent years refining artificial heart designs under the mentorship of Willem Kolff, a pioneer of artificial organs. The device used compressed air delivered through tubes connected to a 375-pound external console. Clark would be tethered to the machine for the rest of his life, unable to walk more than six feet from the compressor. He accepted these terms after being told he had hours to live without intervention. The surgery itself succeeded, but Clark's recovery was brutal. He suffered seizures, nosebleeds, and infections. The compressed air system was noisy and cumbersome. Journalists camped outside the hospital, turning Clark's medical ordeal into a national spectacle. He reportedly asked DeVries at one point, "Can you turn this off?" When told the consequences, he said to keep going. He died on March 23, 1983, from multi-organ failure. Clark's case proved that a mechanical device could sustain human circulation for months, a finding that propelled decades of research into ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts. Modern LVADs now keep thousands of heart failure patients alive as bridges to transplant or as permanent therapy. The technology is smaller, quieter, and far more reliable than the contraption that kept Barney Clark alive. His willingness to be first made all of it possible.