In a rare incident, a heart transplant in east China was successful even though the organ had stopped beating for seven hours after being removed from the donor. Normally, a heart cannot be revived if it remains static for over six hours, say doctors. The donor had been pronounced brain-dead from a brain tumor but was still being sustained via a respirator. “The donor’s heart had stopped beating for 10 minutes when we arrived,” to obtain the matching donor organ about a three-hour drive away in the north of the Fujian Province, said Huang Xueshan, the doctor who performed the transplant, Xinhua news agency reported. The heart did not beat at first after the operation. But seven hours later, the heart resumed beating in the patient’s body. Huang said it is rare to use a heart that has already stopped beating. The transplant succeeded because the donor was young and had a strong heart.
