As incredible as it may sound, an American teenage girl has survived for nearly four months without her own heart after being kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device. Although adults have been kept alive in such way, Miami doctors believe this it this the first time someone of that age has been kept alive for this time interval without a heart.

D’Zhana Simmons, 14, from South Carolina, USA, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy; her heart became weakened and enlarged, failing to pump blood efficiently. D’Zhana had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami’s Holtz Children’s Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed. Doctors implanted two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp of Pleasanton, California, to keep her blood flowing as she battled a series of complications including kidney and liver failure, gastrointestinal bleeding and breathing difficulties. The first two months were very difficult, but she was strong enough to survive four months until October 29, when doctors implanted a compatible human heart.

“She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps,” said Dr Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of paediatric cardiac surgery.

She described the experience of living for so long without her heart and with a machine pumping her blood as “scary.”

“You never knew when it would malfunction,” the lucky patient said at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. “It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here.”

D’Zhana thanked the doctors who saved her life trough heart transplant and said that now she is grateful for small things, such as seeing her five siblings and spending time outdoors. The teenager said she was glad she could walk without the machine.

Doctors say she will be on lifelong medication to keep her body from rejecting the donated heart, and there’s a 50-50 chance she’ll need another transplant before she turns 30.

Dr. Marco Ricci, director of pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of Miami said that in the past this situation could have been lethal. It’s rarer for children than it is for adults to have these life-threatening conditions. It was only reported that one adult without a heart in Germany had been kept alive for nine months. This is one of the reasons why companies don’t invest into technology that could help pediatric patients.

Dilated cardiomyopathy or DCM is a condition in which the heart becomes weakened and enlarged, and cannot pump blood efficiently. The decreased heart function can affect the lungs, liver, and other body systems. The disease primarily affects the myocardium (the muscle of the heart). Dilated cardiomyopathy, also known as congestive cardiomyopathy, occurs more frequently in men than in women.