To live without a heart? We know it’s possible for some minutes, let’s say hours, but for four months? That was how a 14-year-old girl lived during 118 days when her heart was stopped from any function. D'Zhana Simmons said that she felt “fake” but even if she couldn’t feel anything, she knew she was still there. "And I did live without a heart," the brave teenager said.

Simmons was released on Wednesday from a hospital in Miami and she seemed really scared when thinking about all she had gone through. The 14-year-old had two heart transplants since July and lived with the help of artificial pumps, but with no heart during the two transplants.

Simmons and her parents found out last year that she had an enlarged heart that didn’t pump the blood correctly. So she had to undergo a heart transplant and traveled together with her parents from Clinton, S.C. to Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami where the surgery was possible. Still, the heart she received the first time wasn’t good at all for her organism so the doctors removed it two days after.

Because it was too early for a new transplant, the doctors took an incredible risk and replaced the heart with artificial pumping devices which helped the blood circulate through her body. Dr. Peter Wearden, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, who didn’t participate in the surgery, stated that the doctors in Miami did a very big job.

Dr. Marco Ricci, director of pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of Miami, stated that these kinds of surgeries are very dangerous and that is why the health system doesn’t invest so much in them. But this case has opened the road to very many possibilities to save a heart and a life.