TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO-WAWV)– On Tuesday, December 5th, 2023 Gary B. Clark was killed as he was crossing U.S. Hwy. 41 in Vigo County.
It was a hit and run.
In July of 2021, Mr. Clark was profiled for his service as a U.S. Marine, during Vietnam, and his connection to his father, Barney Clark, the world’s first artificial heart transplant recipient.
Barney Clark served in World War II as a medic and a bombardier trainer. His son Gary was in the Marine Corps during Vietnam. Like a lot of veterans, they did their duty and served their country. That service was important, but what this family endured and achieved after their service gained worldwide attention in the field of medicine.
Not many people have a family member whose name is known around the world.
But as Gary Clark of Terre Haute looks through the pages of a book about the world’s first artificial heart transplant recipient, he is filled with pride about Barney Clark, his dad.
“If you want to say hero worship that’s who I would look up to,” said Clark.
In December 1982,the Seattle dentist survived a seven-hour surgery to remove his heart and replace it and artificial heart called the Jarvik 7
His own enlarged heart was failing because of cardiomyopathy. The procedure had been tried on animals with some success but never on a human
Gary says his dad knew the risk, but he wanted to do it anyway.
“Medicine had been pretty good to him and he wanted to do something for medicine and he thought as long as he was going to die, if he could help other humans or other people, by doing this, then he thought he should,” said Clark.
After the procedure things look promising and his parents shared a rather funny moment.
“They asked Mom that if he should survive, if he had guests and he got tired, would she ask the guests to leave. Well that’s not Mom, she had a hard time answering that one,” said Clark.
A couple of days after the procedure Gary traveled from Seattle to see his dad in Salt Lake.
“I walked in the room and he said hello son how are you any kind of sat up a little bit and shook my hand that was pretty emotional,” said Clark.
Gary says the doctors and his parents were optimistic. In fact they were planning for a life in Salt Lake and Gary and his mom actually look for a house near the Utah hospital. But then there were a series of setbacks. One half of the heart failed so they had to replace it and then there were the nosebleeds from tubes, which was hard to stop. Gary says that led to infection which was the beginning of the end.
112 days after receiving the Jarvik 7 Barney Clark passed away.
Gary and his brother were back in Seattle when it happened and Gary received a call from his brother who had heard about it on the news
“He had called me to tell me that he had died, because he didn’t want me to hear, the same way that he did, remembered Clark.
Gary’s mom was with her husband throughout the 112 days and after he passed she became a spokesperson for the American Heart Association.
She spoke before Congress and had a personal meeting with President Reagan in the Oval Office.
“Meeting the president and she runs up to him and says oh Ronnie, and gives him a hug and the Secret Service was about beside themselves they didn’t know quite what to do,” laughed Clark.
Besides the many memories of his mom and dad, Gary has a constant reminder of his connection to his father
That’s because he also has cardiomyopathy
“Why I haven’t regressed as much as Dad, I don’t know,” said Clark.
