Derrick Morris

Who was Derrick Morris?

Derrick Morris was, at the time of his death, Europe's longest-surviving heart transplant patient.

Morris, a docker from Swansea, had suffered a heart attack in 1975, and received his new heart in an operation carried out by Magdi Yacoub at Harefield Hospital in 1980. The donor was a 26-year-old woman who had been killed in a car crash. Morris was given only a 15% chance of survival, and was told to "live six months at a time", but was eventually able to return to work at the docks. He was the eleventh person in the UK to receive a heart transplant, and by the 20th anniversary of his operation, he already held the European record.