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It was a case of first come, first served. Vaughn arrived in Tucson at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 3 1/2 hours ahead of the Utah team. By then, Creighton had been on the heart-lung machine for nearly six hours. Says Vaughn, the choice was clear: "Either we try the artificial heart or we turn off the machine and tell Creighton's mother that her son is dead." After three hours of surgery, the pump was in place.
Like the Jarvik-7, the Phoenix heart runs on compressed air from a bulky external unit. The test model was built by Cheng in his spare time with limited funds and is 25% larger than a human heart. So large, in fact, that Creighton's chest had to remain open--though swathed in protective materials --for the eleven hours the device was in place.
The Phoenix heart sustained Creighton long enough for another human heart to be found and implanted. But it soon became clear that the ten hours he had spent on a heart-lung machine had taken their toll. As a result of blood- vessel damage, fluid had accumulated in his lungs, causing a buildup of pressure on the right side of his new heart that ultimately proved fatal.
"We did all we could," Copeland told reporters after the death. "As a physician, my conscience is clear." Though the FDA initially expressed disapproval of Copeland's actions and has demanded a written explanation, the agency said at week's end that it did not "contemplate any drastic penalty" for the surgeon or his hospital.
As Government officials, doctors and theologians debated the ethics of Copeland's actions, Creighton's mother and sister made their feelings clear. They thanked the doctor and the hospital staff for doing "everything within their human power to give him a life" and expressed the hope that the Phoenix heart experiment "would pave the way" for other heart patients in need. "We are thankful," they said, "that it was available for Tom."