This Man Carries His Heart Around In His Bag. (picture)

A bodybuilder who suffered heart failure was rushed to hospital for a transplant - and now has an artificial heart he carries around in a backpack.

READ TO THE END TO WATCH VIDEO

Andrew Jones, from Conneticut, first became unwell in 2012 after struggling to breathe during a run.

He was horrified when two years later he started to cough up blood and developed a high fever.

In hospital, doctors diagnosed the 26-year-old with cardiomyopathy - a hereditary disease of the heart muscle - and soon he became so weak he couldn't stand, walk or dress himself.

A few months later, medics told if he didn't have a transplant immediately he would die.

As there were no organs available, he was fitted with a pacemaker and an artificial heart - which he now carries around in a bag on his back.

Despite his brush with death, he is now back to the gym and said he cries after workouts as he feels so 'thankful to be alive'.

Recalling suffering from heart failure, Mr Jones said: 'It's something I would never want to wish upon my worst enemy.

'You can't breathe, you can't think, you don't eat and you don't sleep.

He continued: 'Living with this disease put me in a pattern with depression and physical pain.

'I had to stop working because I wouldn't be able to stand for more than 10 minutes.

'I dreaded going to the kitchen because that meant that I had to go up and down my stairs.

'I couldn't even get dressed without panting and gasping for air - my life was falling apart and I just wanted relief.'

Cardiomyopathy isn’t a single condition, but a group of conditions that affect the structure of the heart and reduce its ability to pump blood around the body.

The heart muscle can become enlarged, thick, or rigid - or muscle can become replaced with scar tissue.

Mr Jones was devastated when his condition left him to weak to walk, let alone lift weights.

But since having the artificial heart implanted he has slowly recovered and is now back to training in the gym.

His artificial heart has two tubes that exit the body and are connected to a machine he carries around in a bag.

The machine delivers compressed air into the ventricles to allow blood to be pumped through the body.

His doctors have said as long as he tells his transplant routine about his weight-lifting routine, he is able to keep training.

He said: 'I will never forget the day I had to throw in the towel until I started feeling better.

'I tried my hardest to push through the shortness of breath, but I just could not train without my heart functioning properly.

'Today, thanks to my medical devices, I feel like a new person.

'I am almost back to the old Andrew that was able to train with passion and intensity.

'I do everything I can without compromising my health and the security of my devices.'

Mr Jones even launched his own charity, Hearts at Large, to raise awareness for organ donations and has over 14,000 followers on his Instagram, @FitnessWithAJ.

Grateful to be alive, he now breaks down in tears at the gym as he is so happy he is still able to train.

He said: 'I always loved working out and staying in shape, but I never actually took the time to be thankful to even have the ability to do so.

'Now I end my workouts almost in tears because I am still alive and I feel amazing.'

While some would hide their scars, Mr Jones wears his with pride, and explains to anyone who asks why he carries a backpack with him everywhere.

He said: 'I work in retail part-time and customers ask me all the time why I wear my backpack.

'When I tell them what it is for the response is somewhere along the lines of shock.

'They think I am pulling their leg, or seem surprised because I look healthy.

He continued: 'I'm never afraid to go out in public or take off my shirt in front of other people.

'I do try to be considerate because it is different and some people may feel uncomfortable.

'But I have no problem explaining what my device is, how it works and why I need it.'

He said during his four-month stay in hospital, he was constantly reminded of how serious his circumstances were.

'Despite this I couldn't shake the thought of the people who aren't healthy enough to even be considered for a transplant, or the people who don't have access to good health care,' he said.

'That is what I want to change with Hearts at Large. We can advance our already incredible technology to save lives.'

DA video

See more photos

Comments

Zana of Abkhazia( the ape woman)

Zana of Abkhazia( the ape woman) There are mamy stories of persons who lived outside civilization and how wild they acted. Among them all, the story of Zana the Apewoman stood out. Zana was described as a six-foot, six-inches tall woman discovered in the Caucasus mountains between Georgia and Russia. In 1880 she was captured by local hunters. Zana behaved like a wild animal and as such was was kept in a cage. It is said that she dug a hole in the ground and slept in it for the first three years. After three years she was tethered at first, but then was let loose to walk around and wonder. Like a well trained dog, she never went far from where she received food. She did not like living indoors and preferred to sleep in a hole in the ground. Description Zana's skin was dark and her whole body was covered with reddish-black hair. She was very tall, broad, and had huge breasts and buttocks with very muscular arms and legs. She never learned to speak, instead she made inarticu...

Terribly Shocking: Take A Look At The Little Girl Who Has No Intestines And Has Never Tasted Food

A little girl hasn' t been able to properly eat for more than a decade after her digestion tracts were torn out of her body during a horrendous swimming pool accident. Salma Bashir bites food at home so she can taste her mum' s cooking, however, she needs to spit it back out into a plastic pack. The whole accident occurred while on a vacation with her family in Egypt, at only five years old after Salma went to play in the child pool. Her pregnant mum was watching her more established sibling in the grown- up pool. Salma wound up incidentally sitting on the pool' s attractions valve and the power was solid that it tore her digestive organs from her body before anybody got an opportunity to pull her away. Salma reviewed: " I was simply swimming out of nowhere, I just sat on it unintentionally. I realize the lifeguard attempted to haul me out and he couldn' t because of the extent. My father attempted to haul me out. And afterward, I know a few groups, at last, had...

Baby Strangled In An Uncompleted Building As Mum Went Out To Buy Things (Graphic)

Baby Strangled In An Uncompleted Building As Mum Went Out To Buy Things (Graphic A 3-year-old baby got strangled in an uncompleted building after the mother left her to buy food items in the market this morning. The baby reportedly left the room while playing and climbed the stires to the unsecured balcony. While at the balcony her cloth got trapped by rod and was strangled to death on the process . Mother in tears as Baby Strangled in an Uncompleted Building Facebook user who reported this incident wrote; "This 3 year old baby was left alone in the house by her mum who rushed out to buy something from the market. She got out of the room and climbed the stire case of an uncompleted building in the compound and got to the unsecured balcony and her cloth got trapped by this rod that strangled her to death. Please instead of leaving ur child alone at home, why not take her to ur neighbor's place. May her soul rest in peace. God please protect your children in J...

Bizzarre: How Europeans Once Ate Egyptian Mummies For Healing

Over time past, specialists have utilized healing methods without a wide range of logical examinations. A genuine example was mummy powders. For quite a long time they were viewed as a genuine panacea, they were credited with a wide range of healing ideals, from the recuperation of ulcers and fixing of broken bones, to epilepsy, through to healing toothache. atOptions = { 'key' : 'afa458fff6fea7b066dcc6550a5ed8b9', 'format' : 'iframe', 'height' : 60, 'width' : 468, 'params' : {} }; document.write(' '); This curious treatment partook in the passive consent of every friendly class to the sovereignty class. In some history books, even the French ruler Francis II didn' t leave the royal residence without a decent stock of sachets with mummy powder. T he utilization of mummies for clinical designs was the consequence of etymological error. In antiquated times the Persians exchanged bitumen, a dark and gooe...

THE MAN WITH SEVEN THOUSAND PRIVATE CARS

THE MAN WITH SEVEN THOUSAND PRIVATE CARS Hassanal Bolkiah is the current Sultan and Yang di-pertuan of Brunei, as well as the Prime Minister Of Brunei , making him one of the last absolute monarchs. He has 7,000 cars in his garage. Brunei is the sovereign state located on the North Coast Of the island of Borneo in the Outhouse East Asia. Apart from Royalty, he is a lover of real beautiful exotic automobile with a collection of Seven Thousand Cars in his garage. Below is the breakdown of cars in his garage: 604 Rolls Royce’s 574 Mercedes Benz 452 Ferrari’s 209 BMW’s 179 Jaguar’s 134 Coenigsegg’s 21 Lamborghini’s 11 Aston Martin’s 1 SSC All of his cars are bulletproof and feature state of the art technology. Mercedes Benz brand made specially custom made cars for him. This means there is only one of the kind in the whole world and it belongs to the Sultan. The Sultan also has a gold plated Mercedes Benz car in his collection. With 450 Ferrari’s the Sultan is one of top ...

Mother abandon her new baby in a gutter the same day she was born

Mother abandon her new baby in a gutter the same day she was born This new born baby corpse was discovered yesterday in a gutter at Asawa community This is heart wrenching! Millions of women are crying for just one child and someone carried a full term baby like this and dumped him/her in the gutter like trash. Why? How heartless! Nothing about this makes any sense at all A lady commented; Father in Heaven, have mercy on the mother of this child! Rest in peace sweet child! Ladilgs: Sad but we should all try and find out what the real story is before we condemn the mother. She was was attacked by a neighbor who was so paranoid; Can you spare me that? nothing on earth justifies this , so what real story do you want? What the blazes are you on about? Real story? In my opinion, there's no acceptable excuse for dumping a baby in a storm drain. That is about as wicked as any mother could ever be. I'm no advocate of abortion, other than for health reasons, but in this case, it...

The Shocking Village Where Everyone Has Only One Kidney

The bizarre story of Nepal’s “Kidney Village” Hokse is a small village located in the east of Kathmandu-Nepal, filled with mud-brick homes and known for its residents commuting to the capital for work since staying in their home village means making less than $2 a day working on small farms. But what appears to be a normal small town, has a dark secret hiding within. Out of the 75 households in a single ward of homes, at least one member has sold a kidney. T he story began when smooth-talking organ traffickers regularly visited Hokse and other small villages for over a decade, in an attempt to convince the poor and uneducated residents to have operations in southern India. One of their regular tricks was to play on their naivety and tell them that their kidney would grow back! Some victims were kidnapped and forced to give up an organ, and some were lied to about needing an operation and the organ was harvested without their knowledge. Other villagers were more aware of the phy...

Why Adolf Hitler offer Rommel the chance to take his own life.

Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Pour le Mérite for his actions on the Italian Front. In 1937, he published his classic book on military tactics, Infantry Attacks , drawing on his experiences in that war. In World War II, he commanded the 7tph Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign established his reputation as one of the ablest tank commanders of the war, and earned him the nickname der Wüstenfuchs , "the Desert Fox". Among his British adversaries he had a reputation for chivalry, and his phrase "war without hate" has been uncritically used to describe the North African campaign. A number of historians have since rejected the phrase as myth and uncovered numerous examples of war crimes and abuses towards both enemy soldiers and native populations in Africa during the conflict. Other historians not...

Woman Reportedly being Electrocuted while walking home with her child in Benue state

MAKURDI— A three-year-old boy, Terfa Kor, and his mother, Nguwasen Kor, were yesterday, electrocuted in a bush at Lessel town, in Ushongo Local Government Area of Benue State. Vanguard gathered from an eyewitness that the boy had gone to a nearby bush, around the old Union Bank area of the town, to defecate when he attempted to pick up a live electricity cable pulled down the previous night by windstorm. The eyewitness said: “He was electrocuted the moment he touched the cable. His scream attracted his mother, who was standing afar. “His mother also dashed to where her son was, and ignorant of what happened, grabbed him and also got electrocuted.” The source said the death toll would have been higher but for the quick intervention of a passerby, who stopped some onlookers from attempting to rescue mother and child. The eyewitness said: “Some other women, who did not understand what had happened, attempted to rescue the victims but for a man who understood the situat...

MUST READ! ! ! See The Oldest Living Tree In Africa That Houses A Bar In It’s Trunk

There is a way that scientists tell how long things have been around. This method is called carbon dating. Baobab trees typically have a very long lifespan. They can live up to 3, 000 years. Baobab trees are known for having a huge trunk that is the size of 6 huge trees. Some of them have holes in the trunk. The baobab is also known as the upside down tree because its branches closely resemble roots. They are a great source of legend and folklore. The Tree Bar in South Africa The oldest South African Baobab tree (also known as the tree of life) in Africa is found in Sunland (platland) in the Limpopo province of South Africa. And it has lived for almost 2, 000 years. It is the oldest tree in South Africa. Inside its hollow trunk, there used to be a bar. It became a resort in 1993 when the bar' s owners, Heather and Doug Van Heerden, cut a deeper hole in the tree. A door was placed in a square natural ventilation in the trunk. There is draft beer, seating and a music system insid...

Local Undiluted Daily News

Search This Blog