Heart Recipient Drummond Leaves Tucson Hospital

Heart transplant patient Michael Drummond walked out of University Medical Center on Thursday, 2 1/2 months after he became the youngest person to receive a Jarvik-7 artificial heart.

Drummond, 26, wearing a white protective mask over his nose and mouth, walked slowly to a parking lot and was driven away by his father in a pickup truck. He said “thank you” to a security officer who wished him good luck.

Drummond, whose own heart had become badly diseased, was kept alive for nine days by a Jarvik-7 while doctors searched for a suitable human donor heart. He received the heart of a Texas auto accident victim on Sept. 7, making him the first Jarvik-7 patient to give up the device for a second human heart.

Drummond’s doctors said he would live in an apartment near the hospital for two to three months and then is expected to return to his family in Phoenix with monthly visits to the hospital.