of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As fast as the blood flows into the right atrium of President Spencer W. Kimball’s stopped heart, a tube pumps it out of his body and into a machine next to the operating table.
Dr. Russell M. Nelson peers down into the chest cavity. The room smells of cauterized blood vessels and arteries. Not long ago, this was unthinkable. Operating on a live heart was a medical sin when he entered medical school.
The blood streaming into the machine had been returning to President Kimball’s heart after a trip through his body. The machine takes over for the heart and lungs. An oxygenator strips out carbon dioxide and delivers oxygen. Then the heart-lung machine returns the blood to the aorta, which sends it coursing to his brain, fingers and toes.