Dave Bennett, 57, agreed to be the first to risk the experimental surgery, hoping it would give him a shot at making it home to his Maryland duplex and his beloved dog Lucky. “This is nothing short of a miracle,” his son David said Sunday, two days after his father's life-extending surgery. “That’s what my dad needed and that’s what I feel like he got.” In the nine-hour surgery, doctors replaced his heart with one from a 1-year-old, 240-pound pig gene-edited and bred specifically for this purpose. So far, Bennett is breathing on his own without a ventilator, though he remains on an ECMO machine that is doing about half the work of pumping blood throughout his body. Doctors plan to slowly wean him off. Scientists have been working for decades to figure out how to save human lives with animal organs. Right now, more than 100,000 people sit on organ transplant waitlists, suffering terrible symptoms and side effects. About 6,000 of them die every year waiting in vain for someone else's tragedy to provide them with a new kidney, heart or lung. Tap the link in bio to read the full story.