On December 2, 1982, Dr. William DeVries implanted an artificial heart into retired dentist Dr. Barney Bailey Clark (b. 21 January 1921), who survived 112 days with the device, dying on 23 March 1983. Bill Schroeder became the second recipient, and lived for a record 620 days.

The heart used in these operations was a Jarvik heart, a design created by Dr. Robert Jarvik. As a student at the University of Utah, Dr. Robert Jarvik combined several modifications: an ovoid shape to fit inside the human chest, a more blood-compatible polyurethane developed by biomedical engineer Dr. Donald Lyman, and a fabrication method by Kwan-Gett that made the inside of the ventricles smooth and seamless to reduce dangerous stroke-causing blood clots.

As far back as 1969, doctors had been trying to perfect an artificial heart and an earlier operation could possibly have been the first successful human heart transplant had it not developed the way it did.

In the afternoon of April 4, 1969 Liotta and Denton A. Cooley replaced a dying man’s heart with a mechanical heart inside the chest at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston as a bridge for a transplant. The patient woke up and recovered well.

After 64 hours the pneumatic powered artificial heart was removed and replaced by a donor heart. Replacing the artificial heart proved to be a bad decision, however; thirty-two hours after transplantation the patient died of what was later proved to be an acute pulmonary infection, extended to both lungs, caused by fungi, most likely caused by an immunosuppressive drugs complication.

If they left the artificial heart in place the patient may have lived longer.