Bygone Times

On THIS LINK you can watch some short clips about Cape Town but also take a virtual tour! This link is worth visiting.

Do yourself a favour and take a look at Etienne’s Flickr photos  – even if you are from the US or the UK you will find pics you will appreciate. On this image you can see the cable car on Table Mountain being inspected – 1977. He has pictures that cover a variety of topics and you will surely find something to your taste. This next pic is Adderley Street – Cape Town  – 1960.

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Let’s ride the wind

Cape Town – with its surrounding beaches – is the place to go – for many tourists. If you haven’t been to South Africa, everybody will encourage you to go to Cape Town first.  There are various reasons why people will tell you to go to CT first. Of course I will suggest it too, as it is a touristy city, lots of activities for tourists, beautiful historical sites to visit, beautiful views and Table Mountain to enjoy on a picnic outing. – My next stop for anyone that’s been to South Africa before, will of course be my favourite: The Drakensberg Mountains! There are various hotels in the Mountain range and the most beautiful spots for anyone that loves hiking. Back to Bloubergstrand. If you search Bloubergstrand, you will find the most beautiful pictures, some of which you can see in this entry. Laurika Rauch sings the song  Op Blouberg se Strand, but this time I have the song as sung by Juanita du Plessis. I’ve roughly translated the song for English readers. This song describes some of the activities at Bloubergstrand. I’ve also found a very interesting piece of reading about Bloubergstrand. Do enjoy it.

If you’re in Cape Town and desperate to play chess, do visit the Goodwood Chess club…see their website for a map and details. They exist since 1963.

http://goodwoodchess.tripod.com/

http://goodwoodchess.blogspot.com/

 Organised club league chess is over 100 years old in Cape Town. Cape Town chess club, the oldest in South Africa (founded in 1885) together with Woodstock, Tokai and the YMCA club formed a union of clubs in 1907.

At Bloubergstrand

The waves know where the billows break
They think they’re free
The clouds drift in the sky
but they must ride the winds
It’s early in the day, at Bloubergstrand
The wind will be blowing, the sun will be burning
But it’s cool after the long night
and we greet the day

Choir

Good morning my sunshine
Good morning my child
Let’s jog alongside the beach
Let’s ride the wind
The sun will scorch us
and the rays will burn
But it’s early in the day
At Bloubergstrand

There are lime-washed houses
and old Table Mountain
There are anglers with rod and hat
pestering fish from early on
Daddy says: my child, we must find black mussels
we love the sea, I love my child
Yes, it’s cool after the long night
and we greet the day

Choir

Good morning my sunshine
Good morning my child
Let’s jog alongside the beach
Let’s ride the wind
The sun will scorch us
and the rays will burn
But it’s early in the day
At Bloubergstrand (2x)

Image: New York Times

Op Blouberg se strand

DIE GOLWE WEET WAAR BREEK DIE BRANDERS –
HULLE DINK HULLE’S VRY
DIE WOLKE WENTEL IN DIE HEMEL MAAR
OP DIE WINDE MOET HUL RY
DIS VROEG IN DIE DAG, OP BLOUBERG SE STRAND
DIE WIND GAAN NOG WAAI, DIE SON GAAN NOG BRAND
MAAR DIS KOEL NA DIE LANG NAG
EN ONS GROET DIE DAG
KOOR:
GOEIE MÔRE MY SONSKYN
GOEIE MÔRE MY KIND
KOM ONS DRAF LANGS DIE STRAND
KOM ONS RY OP DIE WIND
DIE SAND SAL ONS SKROEI
EN DIE STRALE SAL BRAND
MAAR DIS VROEG IN DIE DAG
OP BLOUBERG SE STRAND

DAAR IS WITGEKALKTE HUISE
EN OU TAFELBERG
DAAR IS HENGELAARS MET STOK EN HOED
WAT VROEG VISSE TERG
MY PA, SÊ MY KIND, ONS MOET SWART MOSSELS VIND
ONS IS LIEF VIR DIE SEE, EK IS LIEF VIR MY KIND
JA DIS KOEL NA DIE LANG NAG
EN ONS GROET DIE DAG

KOOR ( X2)

Its pristine beaches and modest lime-washed historic fisherman’s houses have been immortalised in song. Its spectacular, classic view of Table Mountain across Table Bay has been captured on countless photographs, postcards and brochures, which are used to lure tourists to nearby Cape Town.

Yet Bloubergstrand (which is Afrikaans for ‘blue mountain beach’) itself has always had much to offer those willing to make the approximately 25 kilometre journey north of the Mother City to pay it a visit and linger for longer than the amount of time it requires to take a snapshot of the mountain.

Incidentally, one would be forgiven to assume that Bloubergstrand’s name comes from that world famous postcard view of Table Mountain, but one would be quite mistaken. The suburb is actually named after Blouberg, a hill located not too far inland from the coast.

The consistent summer winds sweeping across the bay stirs up the waves, making Bloubergstrand a watersport heaven. In fact, Big Bay – home to the annual, recently held Oxbbow Big Bay Classic windsurfing championship event – is arguably the premier windsurfing and kiteboarding spot in the world.

Strollers and shell collectors can be seen meandering up the wild stretch of Milnerton Beach which lies between the city and Bloubergstrand.

But Blouberg’s beaches and ground are blood-soaked. History buffs will be intrigued to know that a small but significant battle was fought here in1806. It was called the Battle of Blaauwberg and it established British rule in South Africa.

During that time, the Cape Colony belonged to the French controlled Netherlands (then called the Batavian Republic). But the sea route around the Cape was important to the British, so in order to prevent that from also coming under French control, they decided to seize the colony. A British fleet was despatched to the Cape in July 1805 to forestall the French troopships sent by Napoleon to reinforce the Cape garrison.

At the time, the colony was governed by Lt Gen Jan Willem Janssens (Blaauwberg House is located in Gen Janssens Str). He was also commander-in-chief of the colony’s military forces. The forces were small and of poor quality and backed up by local militia units.

The first British warship reached the Cape on Christmas Eve 1805, marking its arrival by promptly attacking two supply ships off the Cape Peninsula. When the main fleet sailed into Table Bay on 4 January 1806, Janssens mobilised his garrison, declared martial law and called up the militia.

Two British infantry brigades, under the command of Lt Gen Sir David Baird, landed at Melkbosstrand on 6 and 7 January 1806. Janssens moved his forces to intercept them with the intent of attacking them right there on the beach and then to withdraw to the interior where he had hoped to hold out until the French troopships arrived. He knew that victory against the stronger and bigger British forces wasn’t possible, but he thought the honour of his fatherland demanded a fight.

However, on 8 January 1806, Baird’s brigades reached the slopes of the Blaauwberg mountain before Janssens and his troops did. Janssens halted and ordered his men to form a line across the veld.

The battle began at sunrise. At the onset, Janssens had 2 049 troops. They were far outnumbered by Baird and his 5 399 men. At the end of the battle, Janssens had lost 353 in casualties and desertion. Baird had 212 casualties.

Following the battle, Janssens and his remaining men moved inland to Elandskloof in the Hottentots-Holland mountains.

The British forces reached the outskirts of Cape Town on 9 January. To protect the town and its civilian population from attack, the commandant of Cape Town, Lieutenant-Colonel Hieronymus Casimir von Prophalow sent out a white flag. He handed over the outer fortifications to Baird, and terms of surrender were negotiated later in the day.

However, Janssens, who was still the Batavian Governor of the Cape, still refused to surrender himself and his remaining troops. He was still sticking to his original plan to hold out as long as he could in the hope that the French troopships for which he had been waiting so long for would still arrive and save him.

Eventually, on 18 January, he finally agreed to capitulate. The terms of the capitulation were reasonably favourable towards the Batavian soldiers and citizens of the Cape. In March 1806, Janssens, along with other Batavian officials and troops, were sent back to the Netherlands.

The British forces occupied the Cape until 13 August 1814, when the Netherlands ceded the colony to Britian as a permanent possession. It remained a British colony until it was incorporated into the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910.

Much to our relief, the only battles taking place in Blouberg these days are the ones between the windsurfers, kiteboarders and other athletes.

Source:www.malatabeach.co.za/Info.html

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Wind beneath my wings

I’ve come across this fantastic image. I love thunder/lightning and I do miss it here in London. You don’t get it here and if you do, you would think it was just another plane to touch down at Heathrow. I’ve taken the quote from this travelblog too. Also, enjoy the music of Bette Midler – The wind beneath my wings. South Africa, you are the wind beneath my wings!

Images here from a Cape Town-awardwinning-travelblog, worth to visit! The link will open in a new window.

Cape Town doesn’t get that many thunderstorms so when we do we tend to get very excited. This morning’s spectacular storm had us getting out the cameras and snapping away, but I think Cape Town local John Maarschalk wins with this incredible image.

John says:

“We had a marvellous electric show this morning around Cape Town. This was taken from inside my car with the camera balanced on the camera bag, with the wind blowing and the occassional squall of rain coming through. It wasn’t the best conditions to shoot, hence the movement in the image.

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Chess the Musical..South Africa

This musical is currently running in South Africa…and you have the option to see it in either Johannesburg or Cape Town…make sure not to miss it! Click on the images for a larger view.

 Please click HERE to book your night with the Chess Musicals! in Cape Town. All images from the site too and there’s a link to the review in a PDF document. Please click HERE to book your night in Johannesburg and you can click HERE for more information too ….
On my blog HERE you can read more about Cito and there’s also a link to his MySpace site.
 

100th PRODUCTION AT PIETER TOERIEN’S MONTECASINO THEATRE!

Pieter Toerien presents
CHESS – The Musical
22 March – 25 May 2008
Now on stage: MAIN Theatre

Set during the Cold War, CHESS involves a romantic triangle between two players in a World Chess Championship, and the woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Although the protagonists were not intended to represent any specific individuals, the characters’ personalities are loosely based on those of Victor Korchnoi and Bobby Fischer. The show is not so much about the game of chess, but rather about how the Cold War affected the lives of those it touched.

Freddie, the American, is supported by Florence. During the course of the Championship, Florence falls in love with the Russian Anatoly, and leaves Freddie. This sets off a sequence of events that tears Anatoly from his wife Svetlana and his manager Molokov, who happens to be connected to the KGB. Who wins the World Chess Championship? Do the politics of the Cold War have the last say? CHESS is very dark, portraying a world where you can trust no one and love cannot survive.

From the Alpine heights of Merano, Italy to the sultry heat of Bangkok, Florence, Anatoly and Freddie find themselves swept towards the show’s climatic conclusion! Tim Rice teamed up with ABBA+s Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus in 1984 and, following the formula of JC Superstar and Evita, a concept album of CHESS was recorded. The cast for the album included Elaine Paige as Florence, Barbara Dickson as Svetlana, Tommy Korberg as Anatoly and Murray Head as Freddie. The CHESS album contained the chart-topping hits “One Night in Bangkok” (sung by Murray Head) and “I Know Him so Well” (sung by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson).

CHESS debuted on the London stage in 1986 and played for three years with a cast led by Elaine Paige, Tommy Korberg and Murray Head, while the subsequent short-lived Broadway company featured Judy Kuhn, Philip Casnoff and the late David Carroll. The score includes such tunes as “Nobody’s Side,” “One Night in Bangkok,” “Anthem,” “I Know Him So Well,” “Pity the Child” and “You and I.”

CHESS is a ‘cult’ musical which is hugely popular with musical theatre fans and the general public alike and was voted in the All-Time Top Ten in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the United Kingdom’s “Number One Essential Musicals”.

South African Premier

Pieter Toerien’s South African Premier of CHESS will begin previews at his Montecasino Theatre on the 22nd March and run till 25 May before moving to the Theatre on the Bay in Cape Town. CHESS is the 100th production on stage at Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre.
Source: HERE …

 

Cito…as Frederick…image: Montecasino

On THIS LINK you can read about Chess, the Musical in London.

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Lied van die lewe…song of life!

You can listen to a snippet from his song…”Liefling”. This song was a big hit for many, many years in South Africa and I do believe that many South Africans still love this song! It’s a song about life! I have done a loose translation for you to understand the song – if you are an English speaker.

Lied van die lewe
Om jonk te wees bring lekker dae
Die son skyn dan op elke dag
Die kinders skaats en ry fiets in die strate
Jongmense luister na nuwe plate
Niemand dink aan die tyd wat verby gaan
en dat die lewe net nie stil sal staan. (2x)

Koor:
Sing met my ‘n lied van die lewe
Sing met my van jonk en oud
Die lewe gee soveel mooier dae
maar dikwels gaan dit so gou verby (2x)
Ja, dikwels gaan dit so gou verby.

Maar die lewe sal nooit stilstaan
Dae kom en dae gaan
Die jonges trou en gaan op hul eie
Nou kom daar soms sware tye
Almal werk net vir die hede
Ure, maande en jare vlieg soos die wind verby (2x)

Herhaal Koor

Die oues word dan ook weer ouer
Hul word dan oupa en oumama
Dae word dan vinnig korter
Langsaam gaan die son dan onder
Herinneringe laat ons oor die lewe wonder
Lewe van mooi en troebel dae
staan einde toe (2x)

Herhaal Koor

Song translated: I tried my best and do hope you enjoy it….

Song of life

To be young brings blissful days
The sun shines ‘bout every day
The children in the streets skate and do bike riding
Youngsters listen to new music
Nobody thinks about time flying by
And that life is moving on
And that life is moving on

Chorus:

Sing with me a song of life
Sing with me ‘bout young and old
Life gives so much back to us
But often days go flying by
Sing with me a song of life
Sing with me ’bout young and old
Life gives so much back to us
But often days go flying by
Yes, quite often the days fly so soon

But life is never ever static
Days come and days go
Young people get married and live their lives
Now come even tougher times
Everybody works as for now and here
Hours, weeks, months and years fly like the wind
Yes, hours, weeks, months and years fly like the wind 

Chorus:

Sing with me a song of life
Sing with me ‘bout young and old
Life gives so much back to us
But often days go flying by
Sing with me a song of life
Sing with me ’bout young and old
Life gives so much back to us
But often days go flying by
Yes, quite often the days fly so soon

The older get much older too
They become grandpa and grandmamma
Days grow shorter very quickly
Slowly the sun goes down
Memories make us wonder ‘bout life
Beautiful and harder days
Near its end
Beautiful and harder days
Near its end

Chorus:

Sing with me a song of life
Sing with me ‘bout young and old
Life gives so much back to us
But often days go flying by
Sing with me a song of life
Sing with me ’bout young and old
Life gives so much back to us
But often days go flying by
Yes, quite often the days fly so soon

translated by: Nikita

 Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands as the youngest of eight children, Korsten and his family emigrated to South Africa when he was nine years old. He married Elna Burger and had five children. Career
Initially he worked as an electrician, but from the age of 20, started singing in choirs, some of which were televised frequently by the SABC. However, he received his first formal vocal training in 1952, when he was well into his 20s, studying under Adelheid Armhold at the South African College of Music.In 1955 he moved to Pretoria, where he was one of the founder members of the Pretoria opera company. In 1956, he debuted as Canio in Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.Korsten won a bursary to study in Vienna in 1962, where he received tution under Judith Hellwig. During this period he had the opportunity to perform in Vienna and Munich, but he never sang professionally outside South Africa, mainly due to family considerations. It was only in 1970 that Korsten sold his business to devote himself to full-time singing. In the course of his operatic career, Korsten appeared on stage more than 3,000 times, playing 23 roles in most of the major operas. In 1965, Korsten started his career in light music, with his album “Gé Korsten Sing Uit Die Hart” (“Gé Korsten Sings From The Heart” ), and soon became a best-selling recording artist, with a career spanning 40 years. Nine of his 58 albums achieved gold status. Most of his recorded work is light Afrikaans music, including the song “Liefling” (Sweetheart), which is still performed at rugby matches in Bloemfontein and Pretoria. His popularity as a singer also lead to lead roles in films such as Hoor My Lied (Hear My Song), Lied In My Hart (Song In My Heart) and A New Life, all of which included singing scenes. He received six Sarie awards and, in 1979, an ARTES award for his TV program “Gé Sing” (“Gé Sings”).In his later life, Korsten was well-known for his role as family patriarch Walt Vorster in the long-running South African soap opera Egoli: Place of Gold.

In 1985 he was appointed as the managing director of the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) in Cape Town, a post which he held until 1989.
In 1999, while presumably suffering from cancer, he committed suicide.
Wiki link HERE ..

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Forty years since first transplanted heart beats in South Africa

Heart surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard illustrates a point while addressing a group of journalists in Cape Town, South Africa, on Dec. 10, 1967, a week after performing the first successful heart transplant operation in a human. Barnard’s patient, Louis Washkansky, died of pneumonia 18 days after the operation, but within weeks, other doctors began to perform similar surgeries.

Dr Barnard: “For a dying person, a transplant is not a difficult decision. If a lion chases you to a river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water convinced you have a chance to swim to the other side. But you would never accept such odds if there were no lion.”

 

The first patient, 24-year-old Denise Darvall, had suffered severe head injuries earlier that day when she was struck by a car as she walked to a bakery to buy a cake. A neurosurgeon declared her brain-dead, and her father gave permission for doctors to harvest her heart. Barnard’s team draped the woman, sterilized her chest, and confirmed that their heart-lung machine, which keeps cells alive, was operational.

Midnight passed, and now it was Dec. 3, 1967.

Barnard’s assistants opened Darvall, connected her heart to the machine, and began to cool her body. When it had reached the proper temperature, they excised Darvall’s heart and placed it in a bowl of ice-cold solution. Unlike the woman’s brain, the heart was perfectly healthy.

Barnard was in an adjacent operating room with the second patient, 55-year-old businessman Louis Washkansky, who had been anesthetized after signing a consent form that essentially rendered him a guinea pig. Washkansky suffered from debilitating coronary disease for which there was no cure. Without a transplant, he would soon die.

Although an American doctor in 1964 had sewn a chimpanzee’s heart into a person who lived but a few hours, no one had ever tried to transplant a human heart — but several surgeons, including Barnard, had experimented with transplanting a heart from one dog to another. By December 1967, Barnard, 45, was ready to leave the lab.

Barnard opened Washkansky, connected him to a separate heart-lung machine, and quickly cut out his damaged organ, replacing it with the young woman’s. Then he tested the sutures. They held strong. Washkansky’s new heart had stopped beating, but the cold had sustained it and one shock of electricity restarted it. Barnard slowly weaned his patient off the heart-lung machine. At 8:30 a.m., Washkansky was wheeled out of the operating room. The beat of his new heart was strong.

Word of the operation had been leaked to reporters, who awaited its outcome at the hospital. One doctor told the Associated Press that jolting Washkansky’s new heart back into action “was like turning the ignition switch of a car.” Barnard told another wire service that Washkansky deserved the credit. “If it had not been for this man’s courage and will to live,” he said, “the operation would never have succeeded.”

Reports of the operation made headlines around the world, including front-page stories Dec. 4 in The New York Times and The Providence Journal. Pneumonia would kill Washkansky 18 days after his transplant, but a new era had arrived.

Forty years later, untold thousands of people who would have been in their graves now are leading normal lives.

Jim Taricani, who received a new heart in 1996 after years of progressive heart failure, is one of them.

This did not seem his future when Taricani, 58, now an investigative reporter for Channel 10, was a young man. He smoked and had high blood pressure, but there were no other clues into what fate held for him. He exercised regularly and had never experienced any of the typical symptoms of heart disease: angina, shortness of breath, weakness, dizziness. To his knowledge, only one relative had a history of cardiac disease: his maternal grandmother, who died at the age of 78 during her fifth heart attack.

At 3:06 a.m. on July 9, 1986, pain that he would later compare to an elephant on his chest awakened Taricani. He thought he’d pulled a muscle the day before while lifting weights at his gym, and he left his bedroom for the kitchen, where he hoped stretching would soothe him. It did not. The pain intensified and spread to his left arm, not a promising sign. He woke his wife, Laurie.

“I think you’d better take me to the hospital,” he said.

I’m going to die, Taricani thought to himself. I’m only 36, and I’m going to die.

“You’re in the middle of a major heart attack,” an emergency room doctor said when Taricani arrived at South County Hospital. A blood clot in an artery to his heart had stopped the flow of blood, killing substantial tissue. But the doctors saved Taricani, and he was transported to Rhode Island Hospital, where he stayed for 16 days. A few weeks later, he returned to work — and, he hoped, an ordinary life.

In February 1987, he suffered a second heart attack.

Cardiologists at Providence’s Miriam Hospital took charge of his care, prescribing drugs and admitting him when his heart lost normal rhythm, as it did repeatedly. As the 1980s ended, Taricani was becoming short of breath. His energy flagged and his abdomen bloated as his kidneys deteriorated. He’d entered an early stage of dying.

In November 1993, Laurie returned home to find her husband collapsed on the floor. When an ambulance delivered him to Miriam Hospital, his cardiologist, Dr. Richard Shulman, said: “You need a defibrillator and you’re going to need a heart transplant someday.” Heart transplants are not performed in Rhode Island and Shulman referred Taricani to Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, where doctors implanted a defibrillator, a device that would automatically shock his heart back into normal beating with a jolt of electricity when it lost rhythm. A transplant was inevitable now.

Taricani was 44 years old, and scared.

Oh my God, he thought, a heart transplant. Somebody’s going to cut my heart out — they’ve got to get a donor. Why me?

BARNARD INTENDED to be a general surgeon when he enrolled in a training program at the University of Minnesota in the mid-1950s. But working with the university’s open-heart pioneer, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, headed him in another direction. He returned to his native South Africa, where he specialized in heart surgery — and briefly attracted attention, in 1960, when he transplanted a second head onto a dog. Barnard was a technically flawless surgeon, though no prominent innovator. But he had an ego.

On a visit to the United States early in 1967, Barnard became familiar with the experimental work of Dr. Norman Shumway, another surgeon trained in Minnesota who was a professor at California’s Stanford University School of Medicine. Shumway had devised an ingenious heart transplant operation — with dogs. He planned eventually to move to humans.

Using Shumway’s methods, Barnard beat him — unfairly so, many said. Shumway might have accomplished the first human heart transplant if his superiors had not thought he was restricted by California ethics laws — ones that did not apply in South Africa — regarding the definition of death.

Barnard’s transplant operation on Dec. 3, 1967, inspired his colleagues worldwide. Just three days later, a New York City surgeon cut a heart from a baby born without a brain and sewed it into a heart-crippled infant who died hours later. Barnard performed his second transplant on Jan. 2, 1968. Four days later, when Stanford’s administrators lifted their restriction, Shumway performed his first.

By the end of 1968, surgeons in Bombay, Paris, London and elsewhere were transplanting hearts. Barnard had become an international sensation.

WHENEVER HIS implanted defibrillator went off, the shock would kick Taricani halfway across a room. It went off only a few times in 1994 and 1995, but more frequently as 1996 progressed.

He was shaving on the morning of July 19, 1996, when his heart lost rhythm once more, activating the defibrillator and knocking him to the floor. He stood, and the defibrillator fired again. He crawled out of the bathroom, and the machine went off a third time, flipping him onto his back. He was turning blue.
Read more on this link…
Photo and article of Dr Barnard here. The Link will open in a new window.

“He was one of our main achievers, a pioneer in heart transplant” ++++++Nelson Mandela
” We owe him a great debt of gratitude ” +++++Mikhail Gorbachev
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Forty years ago, in the middle of the night at a Cape Town hospital, South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard rewrote medical history when he carried out the first ever heart transplant.
The operation captivated the imagination of the world, catapulting Barnard and South Africa onto the world stage and leading to hundreds of similar operations around the globe.

Dene Friedman, who was in the theatre during the groundbreaking operation, assisting with the running of the heart-lung machine, remembers the surgery “as if it were yesterday”.

“Nobody took a photograph, nobody did anything … We didn’t think of the publicity side of it,” she told AFP.

Barnard had not even told the hospital that he would be attempting the operation, giving little thought to the reaction his techniques would generate.

“Professor Barnard told them in the early hours of the next morning. He just gave a phone call,” remembers Friedman.

“We just thought that we were doing something worthwhile for the patient,” she said of Louis Washkansky, a 53-year-old diabetic with incurable heart disease who had suffered three heart attacks.

Barnard had already practised the basic surgical technique for the transplant — that was pioneered by other surgeons on animals — in the laboratory. He only needed one donor to put this knowledge into practice.

On the night of the December 2, 1967, a 25-year-old woman was fatally injured in a car accident.

Her blood type matched that of Washkansky’s and her father agreed that her heart could be donated for the surgery.

“We entered the theatre in the middle of the night and left at 8 am the next morning,” said Friedman.

“It was very impressive, exciting and scary. As it had never been done before, we weren’t sure about the effects in a human patient.”

The 30-strong medical team looked on in rapture as the transplanted heart gave its first few beats, making medical history.
Read here more about Dr Chris Barnard.

Another link about Dr Chris Barnard and his transplant.

image: gis.deat.gov.za

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