Comment Kidney transplants, pacemakers, etc (Score 1) 646
I think you mean for nearly-dead patients.
I know a few people who have had pacemakers for many, many, years, and one forty-something fellow who had a heart transplant over 20 years ago and is alive and well. They were all people who would have died at a young age otherwise.
The urge to keep someone alive is also heavily weighted for age. Responders will do everything reasonable to keep someone under 50 alive, someone over 80, not so much. The circumstances are highly subject to case by case judgment, which is usually correct.