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In what’s being described as a medical game-changer, a donor heart recently spent more than seven hours in transit, in a 2,506 miles (4,023km) journey to its recipient – making it the longest distance a human heart has ever travelled for a successful transplant operation.

The man who carried that precious cargo was Dr Joseph Rubelowsky, the lead surgeon for Transplant Advocates, a coordination group in the United States. He used a new type of cooler box to extend the time and distance the donated organs can be transported. He told Newsday how the process works.

"Geographical area has always been a sticking point because traditional once we get... past four hours that's a critical time period that the hearts don't do well. We know in certain places like Atlanta the traffic is unbelievable... in Juneau, Alaska there's not too much traffic and by the time we arrived in Boston it was the middle of the night so again the traffic was not too bad."

"We used to use an igloo cooler box like the one you buy in a grocery store to store beer. But this [new] cooler is like the Goldilocks of coolers... it keeps the organ at around 4-8 degrees [which] is the sweet spot that the organ does the best."

(Photo: Michael Morrison (Surgical Assistant) Dr. Joe Rubleowsky (center) and Bryan Andrews, Transplant Advocates Cleveland Recovery Team. Credit: Transplant Advocates)

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