In Oct 12, 1985, then 44-year-old Singaporean Seah Chiang Nee underwent heart transplant surgery in Sydney — the first Southeast Asian to undergo one.
Doctors at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital removed his heart in a five-and-a-half hour operation, replacing it with one of a 17-year-old boy who had just died.
The veteran journalist lived a long life since, reaching to the ripe old age of 76. He died at the Singapore General Hospital on Saturday after being hospitalised since July last year for shingles and diarrhoea.
"Based on his record he should be one of the longest-surviving in the world," said Kenneth Ng — a cardiologist at the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital — to AFP.
"The median survival rate for heart transplant is only 10 years... so it is definitely on the high end."