Did Red Skelton have anything to do with the artificial heart?

Question

I read somewhere that Red Skelton had something to do with the artifical heart invention. I am trying to find out how much he was involved.

Answer 1

as far as I know, nothing. Barny Clark was the first person put on a total artificial heart. He lived miserably for about 130 days. And the first heart transplant was on a guy called Louis Washanski, in S. Africa, the donor was a lady called Denise Darvell,(killed in an auto crash) and the surgeon was Christian Barnard, who trained in Minneapolis. This was done sometime in the early 60's before anyone knew too much about tissue rejection. Now of course, tissue rejection still exists, but the drugs are pretty fine tuned, and people get to lead almost natural lives after organ transplant. There was the Jarvic heart assist device, which was used for those in waiting for a heart. Doubt that skelton had anything to do with it. Frankly, as I remember he had a yound son that had leukemia, and he spent most of his time as a parent seeing that the boy got to experience everthing he could provide before he (the son) died. You can probably google lots of this stuff I have written and see where you go. Interesting stuff.

Answer 2

PAUL WINCHELL INVENTED THE ARTIFICIAL HEART HE WAS ON TV WITH RED. RED HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
http://www.paulwinchell.com/artificialheart.htm

Answer 3

There is a bio mechanical engineer by that name who was one of the major inventors on the team who worked on the first artificial heart. It is not the comedian. He would have laughed at that story...

Answer 4

i believe you are thinking of ventriloquist paul winchell, who designed and patented a working model of an artificial heart...

Answer 5

I don't remember that or hearing that; but he was a funny guy!

Answer 6

No, Jarvik did.