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The patient, who asked that his identity remain anonymous, was suffering from congestive heart failure and had been in the study for only six weeks. The study requires patients to wear a device called a LifeVest and that is what eventually saved the 48 year old man's life.

Dr. Eugene Storozynsky, a cardiologist at the
University of Rochester Medical Center, began this study 17 months ago. There are currently 31 patients participating with room for about 70 more.

"The purpose of the trial is to enroll patients that are newly diagnosed with congestive heart failure. And typically those patients that have not suffered a heart attack at the time so they don't have a plumbing problem so their heart arteries are open but they have a heart muscle problem,” Dr. Storozynsky explained.

Patients wear the LifeVest continuously except to bathe and shower. It's an FDA approved device that monitors heart rhythms. The vest also has a defibrillator which restarts the heart with an electrical shock should the patient's heart stop.

That's what happened to the Ontario County man on May 22.

"He actually didn't even feel the shock, he had no idea what transpired,” Dr. Storozynsky said. “All he knew was that he had found himself on the floor and that's not where he started. Then he called our office, we had him download the rhythm strips and we determined that in fact that it was a life threatening arrhythmia."

Storozynsky says that patient was dead for about 45 seconds. He added that if the vest hadn't successfully restarted the heart, the man would not have survived.

The patient is no longer wearing the vest, but instead has a defibrillator implant and was released from the hospital this past weekend.