Imagine walking out of a hospital alive, but without a human heart beating in your chest. Instead, a humming titanium machine spins silently, keeping your blood flowing every second of the day. That is exactly what happened in Sydney when a man became the first person in the world to be discharged from hospital with a BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart. He lived for just over 100 days with the device before finally receiving a donor heart.
The story sounds like science fiction, yet it unfolded in an Australian operating theatre and has left the medical world astonished.
The Surgery That Changed Everything
The man, in his ‘40s, suffered from severe biventricular heart failure. Both sides of his heart had stopped working well enough to keep him alive.
Doctors at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney decided to attempt something extraordinary. In November 2024, they implanted the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart.
Unlike older machines that mimic the heartbeat with chambers and valves, this device used a titanium rotor suspended by magnets. The rotor spun in mid-air without friction, pushing blood through his body in a constant stream. It did not beat, it whirred, and yet it was enough to keep him alive.
Life Beyond the Hospital
The most remarkable twist came not in the surgery, but in what followed. For the first time, a patient with the BiVACOR heart was able to go home. In early February 2025, he left hospital with the device humming in his chest and lived at home for about a month until a donor heart became available in early March.
In total, he lived more than 100 days supported by the artificial heart. The system required discipline. A cable ran through his chest, connecting the implant to batteries and a controller outside his body. Each battery lasted around four hours before needing replacement, so he always carried spares.
It was not freedom without limits, but it gave him precious time with family that most patients in his condition never experience.
Why This Was Extraordinary
The man’s survival marked the longest anyone had lived with the BiVACOR device before transplant. More importantly, it proved patients could leave the hospital and live at home while waiting for a donor organ. Until then, people with this device had remained inside the ward until transplant.
The achievement opened the door to new possibilities for thousands with heart failure who face long waits for a donor. The Sydney man showed the world that people could not only survive but return to ordinary life powered by a machine.
The Future of Artificial Hearts
The BiVACOR heart is still experimental and intended only as a bridge to transplant. Risks remain, especially the risk of infection from the external cable and the strain of constant battery changes. But the design itself is a leap forward. With only one moving part and no valves to wear out, it is built to last.
Researchers are already exploring wireless charging systems that could eliminate the cable. If perfected, the artificial heart might evolve into a permanent replacement, freeing patients from the global shortage of donor hearts. It is a dream still on the horizon, but no longer out of reach.
A Step into Science Fiction
Today, the Sydney man has a donor heart beating inside his chest and a second chance at life. But his story has carved a place in medical history. He lived more than 100 days without his own heartbeat, his life sustained by the hum of magnets and titanium.
It is the kind of story that would once have belonged in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Now it is a glimpse of what the future of healthcare may hold, where machines and medicine work together to keep the impossible alive.
