Robert Tools Makes Medical History As First To Receive A Self-Contained Artificial Heart

Jet, Sept 10, 2001

Sometimes the heart of a man isn't about flesh and blood, but the will to live. And sometimes that's enough to risk the experimental.

"I was on my last few days of life," says Robert Tools, of Franklin, KY, the first person ever to be implanted with a self-contained artificial heart. "... I knew I had no more chances to survive."

The July 2, 2001, surgery at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, KY, gave Tools--a diabetic with a history of heart problems whose kidneys and liver were near complete failure-another chance at life. Without the surgery that implanted the plastic and titanium 2-pound pump inside his chest, Tools, who was too sick for a human heart transplant, had about a month to live.

"It feels funny. I'm still getting used to it," he stated about the softball-sized device now regulating the blood flowing through his body. "The biggest thing is getting used to not having a heartbeat, except here I have a whirring sound that makes me realize that I'm alive because I can hear it without a stethoscope."

His artificial heart is self-contained, with an internal battery that, unlike earlier mechanical hearts, has no wires and tubes that stick out of the chest to connect to a power source.

An external power unit transmits power through Tools' skin to a device implanted on his ribcage.

The married, 59-year-old father of two adult children said that he never had any second thoughts about having the experimental surgical procedure. "I had a choice. I could sit at home and die or come here and take a chance. I decided to come here and take a chance."

And since the operation, as of JET press time, Tools was making a recovery that some doctors have called "miraculous."

"We've taken someone who has been the sickest you can get and literally gotten him back into a very healthy situation," said Dr. Laman Gray Jr., one of the doctors who implanted the artificial heart in Tools chest.

Dr. Robert Dowling, who implanted the device with Gray, said their patient still needs to gain about 30 pounds and go through physical therapy. And, if all goes well, Tools should be able to take long walks and enjoy his favorite pastime-fishing.

In retrospect, Tools said he realizes "that death is inevitable, but I also realize that if there is an opportunity to extend it, you take it, and that is what I did."

He said he doesn't look at himself as someone who has made medical history, but as a husband and father "who is trying to survive." Still, he does recognize that his experience will help others, just as he has been helped by information from earlier artificial heart surgeries. "I am standing on the shoulders of other people who have gone before me."