Transplant Fatality

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 17

Transplant Fatality

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

NEW YORK, May 6. The heart of a 15-year-old boy and that of a girl of the same age beat in the chests of two men in their late forties in Houston, Texas, today while surgeons in Palo Alto, California, studied the causes of the death of a heart transplant patient there. A 48-year-old Louisiana salesman and a 47-year-old Arizona accountant were reported to be in good condi-

tion late last night in Houston.

The salesman, Mr James Cobb, yesterday received the heart of William Brannon, aged 15, the victim of a motor-cycle accident Three days ago, Mr Everett Thomas was given the heart of a 15-year-old girl who had died of gunshot wounds to the brain. At the Stanford University Medical Centre in Palo Alto, Mr Joseph Rizor, a 40-year-old carpenter, died last night after suffering lung failure, which prevented oxygen from being pumped to his new heart, implanted last Thursday from a 43-year-old businessman. Mr Rizor’s new heart had functioned perfectly for four days and there was no sign

of tissue rejection, but he had been beset by grave lung complications from the start. In London, Britain’s first heart transplant patient, Mr Frederick West, aged 45, winked at his wife through a glass partition and had his first solid food only two days after receiving a new heart from a young Irishman who had been killed in an accident.