A 34-year-old father of three is living life to the fullest after undergoing a new heart procedure at Duke University Hospital.

Donavon Harbison was diagnosed with deadly total heart failure within the last year.

“Immediately kind of started preparing for my death, you know, double check in life insurance policies, trying to make sure that I could identify those things that I wanted to make sure my kids remembered me,” Harbison said.

Harbison said his two sons, daughter and wife Lindsey won’t have that fear anymore, thanks to him receiving a BiVACOR total artificial heart implant at Duke University Hospital.  

Harbison walked the halls the same day after surgeons did the successful implant in August. 

That operation allowed a medical team to put a new healthy, beating heart in his chest only 10 days later.  

“I consider it to be one of the bigger, biggest blessings. I thank God every day for it,” Harbison said.

Dr. Jacob Schroder, one of the surgeons who operated on Harbison, said the transplant is unique.

“More like the human heart, only not human at all,” Schroder said.

He said the BiVACOR was a bridge to the real transplant.

Duke doctors said Harbison is the second person in the world to receive a BiVACOR heart.

Based on the manufacturer's illustrations and Schroder's description, the BiVACOR artificial heart device pumps blood to both sides of the heart with spinning disc technology capable of evenly spreading the flow of blood throughout the body by reacting to a patient’s movement.

“He is a great patient,” Schroder said. “Ex-athlete. Running races. Gets heart failure, is about to die. We put him on temporary support, and he is skimming the trees in our ICU. And then we put this pump on him, and he was fine. And then he made it to transplant. And he's still doing fine.”

Harbison said there’s only one way to talk about the last year.

“We always joke and say it's a 2024 year. It's been a wild year,” Harbison said.

Harbison’s medical team at Cone Health in Greensboro troubleshooted the end-stage failure to both sides of his heart the best they could before handing over Harbison’s care to Duke University Hospital. The Duke medical team inserted a ventricular assist device into Harbison’s chest but realized a better option was needed.

“Both hospital administrations care about these things but as physicians who really only care about the patients, we don't care where they come from, what health system they're in. Our job is to help the patients,” Schroder said.

So what led to this breakthrough treatment? Harbison said a genetic mutation was behind the biventricular heart failure, which means the right and left sides of his heart quit working, which greatly affected his blood circulation. The mutation and the subsequent health issues qualified Harbison for a first-ever clinical evaluation of the BiVACOR inside a human at Duke. 

“Then they introduced, 'well, there is this, experimental surgery, with this sort of total artificial heart that would replace both chambers of your heart,'” Harbison said.

He and his wife agreed the decision to go through with the BiVACOR implant saved his life. 

Lindsey Harbison said her husband is a success story for medicine and their ever-expanding family. Harbison said they expect to welcome their fourth child in February.

“The constant balance, a lot of faith, a lot of prayers, and just being in it together for whatever it was going to turn out to be,” she said. “I'm really glad it turned out to be, what it turned out to be.”

The heart transplant program at Duke performed 161 surgeries in 2023, the most in the nation and the most annual surgeries in the program’s history. 

Donavon Harbison continues his follow-up appointments at the Duke University Medical System regularly.