Anna Grudziecke was the first child to receive the revolutionary DeBakey artificial heart pump. She survived for sixteen days with the pump implanted in her tiny body, making medical history.

The DeBakey ventricular assist device , named after famed heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, helps weakened hearts pump blood through the body by supplementing the pumping ability of the left ventricle. Adult patients have been known to survive up to a year with the device.

Grudziecke was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in March 2004. Her heart muscles had enlarged to the point where it would stiffen instead of pump blood and had began to deteriorate. She was waiting for a heart transplant at Texas Children's Hospital when the device was implanted in her on March 26, 2004.

She died of multiple organ failure on April 11, 2004 in Houston, Texas. She was 6.