The first patient in Michigan ever discharged with a SynCardia temporary total artificial heart in 2014, Larkin was back at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center in May for a heart transplant. He and his brother Dominique had both been diagnosed as teenagers with familial cardiomyopathy, which is a genetic heart condition that can cause heart failure without any warning - it's one of the leading causes of death in athletes. "They were both very, very ill when we first met them in our intensive care units," said Jonathan Haft, University of Michigan associate professor of cardiac surgery, and the surgeon who performed both procedures on Larkin. "We wanted to get them heart transplants, but we didn't think we had enough time. There's just something about their unique anatomic situation where other technology wasn't going to work." “He really thrived on the device,” Haft said looking at a photo of Stan on a basketball court. “Stan pushed the envelope with this technology.” 
 
 As Haft teaches at the University of Michigan Medical School, the brothers have joined him to discuss the impact of advanced circulatory support for those with end-stage heart failure. Dominique only needed to use the technology for a few weeks before receiving a full heart transplant.
– Twenty-two people die every day because there aren't enough organs available for transplants, CNET reports. Stan Larkin wasn't one of them. Instead, the 25-year-old Michigan father of three spent 555 days without a heart, according to Michigan Live. And it didn't even keep him off the basketball court. Larkin was diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy after collapsing while playing basketball when he was 16. In December 2014, doctors removed his failing heart. There were hundreds of people ahead of Larkin on the donor list, so that same month he became the first Michigan resident to be outfitted with the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver—a 14-pound backpack that uses compressed air to move blood through the body. Before Larkin, no one really knew what the Freedom Portable Driver was capable of, Science Alert reports. He showed them. “He really thrived on the device,” Larkin's doctor says in a press release. “This wasn’t made for pick-up basketball. Stan pushed the envelope with this technology.” In fact, Larkin kept so active he had to replace the device 10 or so times. One thing he couldn't do, however, was give piggyback rides to his daughters. Larkin got his new human heart in May, and he says his daughters couldn't wait. “They're going to be on the front, the back, my neck," he tells Michigan Live. "They're going to be jumping all over me." (A dad filmed the moment his teen son realized he survived a heart transplant.)