The Nation - News from March 26, 1985

Two external, electric blood pumps kept a 60-year-old patient alive for five days while the man’s stopped heart healed itself and resumed beating, a surgeon reported. Dr. George Magovern, director of surgery of Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, said unlike previous uses of double pumps, his technique allowed the patient to continue using his own lungs. “We’re not trying to break any world-shaking . . . scientific news,” Magovern said at a news conference. But he added his team was “extending and modifying” a technique used by many surgeons.