SAO PAULO, Feb 26: A Brazilian man has two functioning hearts after a hospital here placed a new blood pump in his body without removing the old, local media reported on Tuesday.

“If the patient’s body rejects the new organ, the original heart will have time to recuperate and return to its activities,” Doctor Jose Pedro da Silva told the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.

The Beneficencia Portuguesa hospital center gave a patient a second heart in 1992 but did not attempt to keep the original heart functioning, he said.

The more recent operation was conducted in November but is being publicized only now that the patient has stabilized and been released.

“Do you want me to describe what it feels like? That’s difficult,” the two-hearted man himself told CBN radio.

“The two hearts aren’t synchronized. One beats now and the other after. It’s different, but it doesn’t change anything, I don’t feel like I have a full chest. I still breathe, walk, do things, and my life is better,” Horacio Nascimento Neto said.—AFP