The disturbing secret about the first heart transplant in the segregated southern USA.
Surgeons stole a black man’s heart.
Bruce Tucker, a black factory worker in the American South, suffered a skull fracture in May of 1968. Within 24 hours, two surgeons at the Medical College of Virginia had transplanted the worker’s heart into a white businessman’s chest. And voila, the first heart transplant in the segregated South. This story in Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Charles “Chip” Jones tells this story in The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South.
I recently read about this tale in MedPage Today, which provided excerpts from the book.
A triumph of modern medicine? Or a tragedy? Here is a depiction of Tucker’s final hours. Tucker’s brother William desperately tried to discover Bruce’s whereabouts and condition. Meanwhile, the two surgeons proceeded with the operation.
Saturday, 25 May 1968, at 2:30 pm.
While at work, William Tucker’s phone rings. A friend who worked at the Medical College of Virginia quietly asked, “Did you know Bruce is here? There’s something strange going on.”
“What are you talking about?” the very busy solo shoe cobbler asked. William believed his brother to be in good health, so he seemed perplexed when informed that they were taking his brother to the operating room. “What surgery? On what?” The receptionist suggested that William come over to the hospital. As someone approached, the friend quickly hung up the phone.
Separately, a friend of Bruce Tucker went on her fact-finding mission, perhaps tipped off by the same insider receptionist. The friend, Evelyn Gregory, headed to the hospital. Alas, she found no one could provide information or had been told not to offer it. Exacerbated, she then headed to the hospital for black Virginians, but nobody there had any information.
Meanwhile, the hospital claimed Tucker had no family and had liquor on his breath (he had been drinking before his accident). They profiled him as a “charity patient” and designated him as a potential heart donor. Jones offers that Tucker was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Parallel to our story of the admission to the hospital of the unconscious Tucker, we have another man admitted. This second man, a white businessman, had severe coronary heart disease and appeared to be a reasonable candidate for a heart transplant. But first, the surgeons needed to find a suitable heart donor. And they needed that heart fast.
2:45 pm.
The transplant surgeon, Dr. David Hume’s dual operating teams, were scrubbed in and ready to go. One group brought Tucker, his heart still beating strongly, back to the operating theater. He received oxygen to keep his heart and kidneys viable.
3:30 pm.
Tucker’s managing physician switchers off his breathing matching. The doctor established the end of artificial life support — 3:30 ½ p.m. Five minutes later, Tucker exhaled his final breath. 3:33 pm. In the operating room next door, surgeons began to open the transplant recipient’s chest to prepare the recipient for his new heart.
3:35 ½ pm.
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