By Frank Green
Richmond Times-Dispatch
POWHATAN, Va. — The high-tech pump that keeps Jason C. Smallwood’s failing heart running is the same model implanted last year in former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Smallwood, however, is a Virginia prison inmate serving 11 years for drug convictions.
Prisoners have a constitutional right to adequate health care, and since 2009, surgeons at the VCU Medical Center have twice implanted the left ventricle assist device, or LVAD, in Smallwood’s chest.
“Without it, I pretty much wouldn’t be here,” said Smallwood, a healthy-looking, 6-foot-1, 27-year-old Portsmouth native who is serving his sentence at the Powhatan Correctional Center.
Full Story: Va. inmate seeks pardon based on heart-health problems