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Shuttle stories: Local connections to the space shuttle program

Heart pump from shuttle keeps patients alive

A number of medical innovations have come about because of the shuttle program.

Ricky Wolgamuth might still be alive. But if not for the space shuttle, he doubts he'd be in his Manchester Township home with his wife and his three dogs.

In all likelihood, Wolgamuth said, he'd be in a long-term care hospital - flat on his back, hooked to a machine to keep his heart beating, with no hope of ever leaving.

Wolgamuth, 50, spent seven weeks like that at York Hospital after the heart Dr. Larry Shears displays a left ventricle assist device, a pump that helps people with heart failure stay alive while theyre awaiting a transplant. Shears, a York Hospital cardiothoracic surgeon, said the U.S. space program has reaped huge rewards, such as the LVAD, which was developed from technology used on the space shuttle. (DAILY RECORD/SUNDAY NEWS -- KATE PENN) attack he suffered in November. But the machine he was hooked to, called a left ventricle assist device, helped him recover enough to leave the hospital.

"It's nice to be home," Wolgamuth said.

NASA engineers helped develop the LVAD, employing technology from rocket engine turbo pumps used on the space shuttle, according to the agency.

York Hospital cardiothoracic surgeon Larry Shears said the LVAD is commonly used to keep heart transplant candidates alive until a donor comes along. Increasingly, the battery-powered device is implanted in patients to keep them alive on its own.

Wolgamuth said the device was never implanted in his chest. He had a couple of wires inserted into his abdomen, attached to an external LVAD, which kept his heart pumping until it was able to function on its own.

Now, his doctors are keeping an eye on his health to see what kind of treatment he might need to keep going.

Other patients who get the LVAD have a roughly fist-sized device implanted in their chests, Shears said. A couple of wires protrude, which the patients use to recharge the batteries.

They can then move around and live their lives Shears said. That's an enormous improvement over the technology that was available in the early 1980s, which was too big to allow the patient to leave the hospital.

"You were basically tethered to a machine for the rest of your life," Shears said.

He estimates that he's installed about 100 of the LVADs in the course of his career, both in Pittsburgh and in York County.

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