A 64-year-old postal worker went home from the hospital without his heart.
The world's only totally artificial heart is now keeping him alive.
Leroy Hanes would be dead without the world's only total artificial heart.
"He is our first patient now able to go home," says heart surgeon Dr. Chadrick Cross.
At home, this portable power supply is what will keep his artificial heart beating.
"It used to be that when implanted patients were tied to hospital and a huge machine, the big advance is this freedom driver to allow people to go home," says heart surgeon Dr. Michael Bresicker.
"It feels different, but I'm alive," says Hanes.
Hanes heart had essentially failed. This surgery gave him more time to wait for a donor heart, which can take up to five years.
"I'm not used to the noise yet, but having my wife over the noise makes it worthwhile, it doesn't matter," says Hanes.
Hanes says he wants to get back to gardening as he waits for the call to prepare for a heart transplant. They both know that with technology there will be change.
"Yes our life is going to change, it's a new way of living but we're prepared for that and we're happy that we jut have more time together," says Hanes’ wife Pat.
(Courtesy NBC News)
