Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first complete, temporary artificial heart in a human on April 4, 1969, at the Texas Heart Institute (THI), keeping the patient, Haskell Karp, alive for 64 hours, until a suitable heart donor was found.
Karp died thirty-two hours after receiving a new human heart, from renal failure and pneumonia. The operation proved the viability of the artificial heart as a temporary measure. That first artificial heart is now in the Smithsonian.
