Burcham Dies Just 10 Days After He Received an Artificial Heart
Jack C. Burcham, the fifth man to receive an artificial heart, died Wednesday evening, just 10 days after the Jarvik-7 mechanical pump was implanted in his chest.
A spokesman at Humana Hospital Audubon refused to give the cause of death or other details, but Burcham, 62, had been experiencing kidney failure since his operation. He had undergone dialysis treatment earlier in the day.
Burcham, the oldest person to receive an artificial heart, was the first mechanical heart patient who has needed dialysis to cleanse his blood. His kidneys were not functioning properly before the implant.
‘Let’s Go for It’
When Burcham, a retired railroad engineer, was being wheeled into the operating room to receive his artificial heart, one of his children asked if he was ready for the procedure.
“Let’s go for it,” he responded, and in a tedious, 6 1/2-hour operation Dr. William C. DeVries put Burcham on the experimental road to life with a mechanical heart.
The April 14 implant, the world’s fifth, made the Le Roy, Ill., man the fourth living recipient of a Jarvik-7 heart.
“I know it won’t be a normal life,” his wife, Lavonne, said two days after the implant. “But we’ll have him with us a lot longer than we would have otherwise, and we just thank God for every day we have him.”
Massive Transfusions
But Burcham’s life with the device was rocky from the moment DeVries and his team of surgeons began to place the plastic-and-metal heart into his chest. Although he weighed 163 pounds, well over the 150-pound minimum for the experiment, Burcham’s chest cavity was smaller than the surgeons had expected and they had to cut away some cartilage to position the device in his chest.
The attempts to make the heart fit caused additional bleeding that required DeVries to keep the patient’s chest open for two extra hours that day.
But the next day Burcham was back in surgery, and he lost 42 pints of blood before DeVries could stop the bleeding.
His doctors were concerned that the massive transfusions would further damage Burcham’s kidneys. Before the implant, his kidneys were functioning poorly because the weakened heart was not pumping enough blood through Burcham’s body.
Problem With Kidneys
DeVries had hoped the condition would be corrected when the new artificial heart began pumping blood at a more normal rate. But a week after the implant, Burcham’s kidneys still were not functioning properly and he spent time on a dialysis machine.
Burcham had fit DeVries’ profile of a heart implant candidate perfectly.
He was a Midwesterner, and therefore Louisville was close to home, and he had a supportive family. He and Lavonne, known to friends and family as “Jinx,” had been married 42 years and had four grown children: Jack, Vicki Copley, Connie Pray, and David. A niece, LaDonna Bailey, also was part of their immediate family and the Burchams had six grandchildren.
He was also dying. A severe heart attack in October, 1984, had weakened his heart muscle. Tests indicated that his condition was deteriorating and he was not responding to medication.
Lived an Active Life
Accustomed to an active life, Burcham was suddenly so short of breath he had to sleep sitting up in a chair and take oxygen during the day. A few steps left him winded.
On his 62nd birthday, Feb. 28, he realized his death was imminent. He was considered too old for a heart transplant; 50 is generally the age cutoff.
An artificial heart was his only hope, but the procedure was still a research project and not a proven treatment, his cardiologist told him. It wasn’t a difficult decision, his family said.
“Jack realized he wasn’t going to get well,” his wife said. “So he thought about it (a heart implant) and that was what he wanted.”
Burcham’s doctor referred him to Humana Hospital Audubon, home of the Humana Heart Institute International and DeVries implant program.
“Jack knows this is an experiment,” his wife said after the implant. “He said if it doesn’t help me a whole lot, it may help somebody down the line.”
A native of Watson, Ill., Burcham had served in the Army paratroops during World War II and was in combat in Europe. He had worked for the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad for 30 years and operated trains between Bloomington, Ill., and St. Louis before his heart attack forced him to take an early retirement.
