WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig—and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.
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Lawrence Faucette, who was dying of heart failure but ineligible to receive a conventional heart transplant, was offered a highly experimental surgery by doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
The first video of Faucette since his transplant on Sept. 20, shows Chris Wells, a physical therapist at the hospital, encouraging him to pedal to gain strength.
“That’s going to be tough but I’ll work it out,” Faucette, 58, replied, breathing heavily but giving a smile.
The Maryland team last year performed the world’s first transplant of a heart from a genetically altered pig into another dying man. David Bennett survived just two months before that heart failed, for reasons that aren’t completely clear although signs of a pig virus later were found inside the organ. After the first attempt, there were changes made to improve virus testing and learn from past mistakes.
Attempts at animal-to-human organ transplants—called…
