Like, how is it possible to live without a heart? Is it like an Indiana Jones thing, where they need to swap it at the right moment? How do the veins and stuff reconnect?
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Heart transplant surgery involves a Bypass machine. A bypass machine takes over the functions of the heart that is being removed, allowing the surgeon to disconnect the heart one artery/vein at a time (and the nerves). While the bypass machine still has control, the new heart is implanted, all the plumbing and electricity reconnected. Only once all of that is complete is the bypass machine disconnected and the new heart allowed to take over the functions. This is, of course an over-simplified layman’s understanding of a process that takes years to learn how to perform, dozens of individuals and between 8 and 24 hours to actually perform, but it gets the point across
During the transplant procedure, the patient is connected to a heart/lung bypass machine that takes blood from the body, oxygenates it, and pumps it back in.
The patient’s heart is removed and the donor heart is put in its place, and the surgeons connect the various arteries and veins and then remove the patient from the heart/lung bypass machine.
So a heart bypass machine is attached and this pumps the blood round the body and keeps it moving. The old heart is then disconnected and the new one connected to the veins arteries etc
Once it is fully connected it works like the recipients old heart should have done.
It’s also possible to use artificial hearts as a stop gap method https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/my-story/living-with-an-artificial-heart
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