ABSTRACT
She was 19 and dying. A healthy young woman, she had caught a virus which, by a one in a million chance, had
attacked the heart muscle cells and she was now close to death from heart failure. The situation was dire. Although drugs could damp down the inflammation, there
wasn’t enough time for them to work. The doctors treating her knew that if she could only survive for 48 hours the infection would be brought under control and her heart would start to recover. In a last attempt to save her they turned to a surgeon who had developed the use of artificial heart pumps for patients with heart failure.
