In Cardiff, a family stood at the edge of an unthinkable loss — their infant son's heart failing without warning, doctors speaking of endings rather than beginnings. What followed is a story medicine tells only rarely: a machine the size of a small box stepped in where a human heart could not, and a baby who had been slipping away began to smile again. Macs Green now lives suspended between the device that saved him and the transplant that might complete his future, a reminder that modern medicine can hold the door open, but cannot always say how long the wait will be.
Baby given artificial heart after cardiac crisis now 'thriving,' awaits transplant
Infant faced imminent death from heart failure; now dependent on external artificial device with ongoing transplant uncertainty and associated medical risks.
He's a completely different baby. He's smiling, he's responding to us.
Mark
When you say the Berlin Heart is a bridge, what does that actually mean for a family living inside that metaphor day to day?
Mimi
It means your child is alive and awake and smiling, but you're also acutely aware that the machine keeping him alive can fail. You're grateful and terrified in equal measure. You're waiting for something that requires someone else's tragedy.
Mark
Catrin mentioned that a heart could arrive tomorrow, or it could take two years. How do you live with that kind of uncertainty?
Mimi
You don't, really. You learn to hold it. You show up at the hospital every day. You watch your baby respond to you in ways you thought you'd lost. And you carry the knowledge that stability is temporary, that risks are constant. It's not living—it's a different kind of survival.
Mark
The parents are asking other families to consider organ donation. Is that gratitude, or is it something else?
Mimi
It's both. It's the recognition that they've been given an extraordinary second chance, and that second chance exists only because another family made an unimaginable choice. They're saying: this is what that choice looks like on the other side.
Mark
What strikes you most about Macs's story?
Mimi
That he went from a baby lying sedated on a bed to a baby who smiles and responds to his parents. That transformation happened in days. The machine did that. But it also means his parents are now waiting for another machine—a real heart—to do what comes next. It's both a victory and an incomplete sentence.
El Pulso
- A previously healthy baby suffered two cardiac arrests and was diagnosed with a condition that destroys the heart muscle, leaving his parents facing end-of-life conversations within weeks of his collapse.
- Weeks on sedation and life support at Bristol Royal Children's Hospital left Macs unresponsive, his family watching a machine breathe life into a child they feared they were losing.
- A transfer to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital and the fitting of a Berlin Heart — an external pump that replaces the failing heart's function entirely — reversed the trajectory almost overnight.
- Within days of surgery, Macs was awake, smiling, and engaging with his parents for the first time in months, described by his father as an almost unrecognizable transformation.
- The family now waits — possibly eighteen months, possibly two years — for a donor heart, living inside a hospital with the knowledge that the device keeping their son alive carries its own daily risks.
- His parents are using their experience to urge the public toward organ donation, knowing that another family's devastating decision could be the one that gives Macs a future beyond the machine.
In Cardiff, a family stood at the edge of an unthinkable loss — their infant son's heart failing without warning, doctors speaking of endings rather than beginnings. What followed is a story medicine tells only rarely: a machine the size of a small box stepped in where a human heart could not, and a baby who had been slipping away began to smile again. Macs Green now lives suspended between the device that saved him and the transplant that might complete his future, a reminder that modern medicine can hold the door open, but cannot always say how long the wait will be.
Macs Green was a healthy baby until his heart began to fail without warning. Two cardiac arrests led to a diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy, and his parents, Catrin and Dylan from Cardiff, found themselves watching their son lie sedated on life support at Bristol Royal Children's Hospital, connected to an Ecmo device doing the work his heart could no longer manage. Doctors began speaking about end-of-life care. There seemed to be no way forward.
Then came the Berlin Heart. After a difficult search for available beds, Macs was transferred to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital in August, where surgeons fitted him with an external ventricular assist device — a pump that sits outside the body and takes over entirely from the failing heart. Within days, he was awake. Dylan, a 35-year-old town planner, described the change as almost unrecognizable: a baby who had been a motionless figure on a hospital bed was suddenly smiling and responding. Catrin, a solicitor, said it felt like having their real son back.
But the Berlin Heart is a bridge, not a cure. Macs still needs a donor heart, and the wait could stretch to eighteen months, two years, or beyond — though as Catrin noted with fragile hope, a heart could also arrive tomorrow. The family now lives in the hospital, watching their son thrive on a machine while knowing that stability is never guaranteed and that risks accompany every passing day.
Across the UK in 2024-25, only seventeen children received Berlin Hearts — a rare intervention for a rare crisis. Macs's parents are now urging other families to consider organ donation, understanding firsthand that a decision made in someone else's darkest moment could be the one that lets their child smile again. What remains for them now is the wait, and the hope that the bridge will hold long enough.
Macs Green was a healthy baby until his heart began to fail. Two cardiac arrests came without warning, and doctors diagnosed him with dilated cardiomyopathy—a condition that weakens the heart muscle and can lead to catastrophic failure. His parents, Catrin and Dylan, from Cardiff, watched their son slip into sedation on life support machines at Bristol Royal Children's Hospital, tethered to an Ecmo device that did the work his own heart could no longer manage. The conversation with doctors turned toward end-of-life care. There seemed to be no path forward.
Then came the Berlin Heart. After a difficult search for available hospital beds, Macs was transferred to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital in August, where surgeons fitted him with an external ventricular assist device—a pump the size of a small box that sits outside the body and takes over the job of the failing heart entirely. It is a machine that buys time. It is a machine that waits.
Within days of the operation, Macs was awake. Dylan, a 35-year-old town planner, described the transformation as almost unrecognizable. "He's a completely different baby," Dylan said. "He's smiling, he's responding to us. Before now, he's just been a small baby lying on a bed." Catrin, a solicitor, said it felt like having their son back—the real Macs, not the sedated shell they had been watching fade. The couple have two other children, Caio and Gruff, and for weeks they had been bracing for the worst.
But the Berlin Heart is not a cure. It is a bridge. Macs still needs a donor heart, and the timeline is uncertain. Doctors told his parents he could wait eighteen months. He could wait two years. He could wait longer. Or, as Catrin noted with a kind of desperate hope, a heart could arrive tomorrow. The family now lives in a hospital, watching their son thrive on a machine, knowing that stability is fragile and that risks accompany every day on the device.
Across the UK in 2024-25, seventeen children received Berlin Hearts. It is a rare intervention for a rare crisis, and it works. Macs is proof. But it is also a holding pattern, a suspension between death and life, between the machine that saved him and the transplant that might give him a future. His parents are now urging other families to consider organ donation—to understand that the decision made in the worst moment of someone else's life could be the decision that lets their child smile again.
The Freeman Hospital staff and the broader network of people who supported the family through those darkest weeks have become part of Macs's story now. Gratitude, Dylan said, barely covers it. What remains is the wait—the hope that a donor heart will come, that Macs will remain stable, that the bridge will hold long enough to reach the other side.
Citas Notables
There was talk of end of life at that point. We're so pleased he's on the Berlin Heart. It means he can come off the drugs which have been sedating him.— Dylan, Macs's father
It was like having our baby back. Macs had been absolutely thriving since the operation.— Catrin, Macs's mother
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