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State's First Artificial Heart Patient Dies

(CBS) -- It started as a medical miracle: a man who desperately needed a heart transplant was given the state's first full artificial heart.

It kept him alive, until something went wrong.

CBS 2's Brad Edwards reports.

"It did start working against him. It started hemalizing, breaking down his red blood cells," widow Pat Haynes says of her late husband, Leroy.

He died days ago at the same place that saved him two years ago.

He loved to talk about his heart.

"I miss him terribly," Pat Haynes says.

It's such a novel area of science, there is no guarantee. Two years is by my many accounts a great success.

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