Heart patient from ‘Miracle Workers’ dies

Because of that and because of her small size, Cohn and his institute partner, Dr. O.H. Frazier, decided on a Jarvik model that was more compact and whose engineering had proven especially durable.

“She wasn’t ready to give up. Very bravely, she and her husband said that’s what they wanted to do,” Cohn said.

Frazier was the first physician to implant the pump as a permanent measure, in a British man who is living with it more than five years later. Because the device is being studied in the United States as a bridge to heart transplantation, the FDA had to agree to its use for Benoit despite her ineligibility for a new heart.

The pump was successfully installed last Sept. 29, with Benoit the first post-chemotherapy patient to receive it, Cohn said. The device was created by Dr. Robert Jarvik, who also invented the first permanently implantable artificial heart.

Most of the medical costs were paid for by her husband’s health insurance, the show’s producers said. It was unclear if Primeaux or the show would handle the uncovered expenses.

Although Benoit recovered enough to resume daily activities, including shopping trips and even a visit to a Mardi Gras parade, she suffered an intermittent series of life-threatening problems.

Among these were bleeding in the brain, a stroke and finally the pneumonia and sepsis, a blood infection. She managed to rebound after all but the last set of complications, Cohn said.

When the sepsis set in, her husband told the doctor that he and his wife, now unconscious, had earlier discussed the fact her struggle might be at an end.

“It’s time to call this,” Cohn recalled Primeaux telling him. The pump was turned off and Benoit died within 30 seconds.

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