According to the Palm Beach Post, doctors are amazed that Tony Huesman from Ohio is still alive 28 years after his heart transplant. His heart had been damaged by a pneumonia virus, which had caused his heart to enlarge by four times its normal size and the walls of the heart to stretch and become "paper thin."

When Huesman received the transplanted heart in 1978 at Stanford University, it was one of the only United States' (U.S.') transplant centers doing this type of surgery. Most other heart surgeons and locations had abandoned the transplantation of hearts, because most patients were not surviving very long after surgery.

However, Huesman, currently 48 years old, has beaten the odds as the only living, single heart transplant recipient today.

The first world's heart transplant was undertaken by Dr. Christian Barnard from South Africa in 1967. In 1968, another 100 heart transplants were performed. However, survival was short-lived. By 1970, the annual heart transplants being performed dropped to 18 due to the mortality risks. This number eventually increased to over 2,000 transplants in 2003 as heart specialists have been able to increase the odds and the surgery is more commonly performed.

In the U.S., there have been almost 60,000 heart transplants to date since Dr. Norman Shumway performed his first heart transplant in 1968 at Stanford University. Statistically, 1 of every four patients died within five years after having a heart transplant in the years from 1998 to 2000. In the past 10 years, the rate of survival has increased.

The American Heart Association reports that as of July 15, 2005, the one-year survival rate for heart transplants is 86.4 percent for males and 84.6 percent for females. The same three-year survival rate is 78.9 percent for males and 76.1 percent for females. Thousands of Americans could benefit from heart transplants if only more were being donated.