A two-hour guided tour of the museum will provide details of the extraordinary chain of events leading up to the operation.
Revealing the original theatres where the operation actually took place. Everything in them is laid out to create a fully authentic representation of the pioneering operation.
Bringing alive the character of a surgeon, the recipient and the donor. After having been declared brain dead, Denise Darvall was brought to the donor theatre, shortly after midnight. Her heart was eventually excised for transplantation into the recipient Louis Washkansky.
Recreating the tension of the night of 02 December 1967 and the early hours of the following morning. In Theatre A Chris Barnard, assisted by Rodney Hewitson, carefully sewed the donor heart into place in Washkansky's chest. At precisely 06.13 a.m. Washkansky's new heart began to beat strongly and Professor Chris Barnard looked at his team and said in Afrikaans "Dit gaan werk!" - "It's going to work!"
Placing the first heart transplant within the context of decades of international research and exploring the ethical and religious issues surrounding the definition of the moment of death.
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