Beating inside the chest of New Castle resident Cecil Nester is a new heart.

The life-sustaining organ was implanted in his chest in May, two months after he was rushed to Lewis-Gale Medical Center, then transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond with cardiac failure.

Nester is one of about 50 people who receive heart transplants each year in Virginia. But what made his situation even more unusual was that before he received the new heart, Nester became the first person on the East Coast to use a device called the CardioWest Total Artificial Heart, or TAH-t, recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The artificial heart is designed as a bridge while patients wait for donor hearts. Nester was a candidate for the device because his heart was failing on both the left and right sides. (Another artificial heart device works with failure on the left side of the heart only, for example.)

Fortunately for Nester, VCU doctors had recently completed training on the new device when he was rushed to the hospital at the end of March with heart problems. The Total Artificial Heart has been used in Tucson, Ariz., where it was developed, and in Cleveland, but never in a hospital on the East Coast.

Last week, Nester and his new heart returned home to Craig County, where he's recuperating. His prognosis is excellent, said Suzie Harton, who supervises heart and lung transplants for the VCU Health System.

"I'm looking forward to my new life," said the 60-year-old Nester, who is married with three children and three grandchildren.

Heart problems aren't new for Nester.

About five years ago, he had a quintuple bypass surgery. That worked for a while. Then, over the past year, Nester noticed he was short of breath and had no stamina.

The Vietnam veteran's doctor was treating him with medication. But Nester continued to have chest pain and decided to look for more information on the Internet.

That led Nester to VCU in early March.

"I really didn't know what I needed at the time," Nester said.

After some medical tests, Nester's cardiologist in Richmond, Dr. Michael Hess, told him he should have come in six months earlier. Nester stayed in the hospital for several weeks for testing.

In late March, on his way home from VCU, Nester passed out at a Dairy Queen outside Richmond. He made it home, but continued to have serious chest pain and trouble breathing. A rescue squad took him to Lewis-Gale, where another squad then took him back to Richmond, as Hess requested.

Doctors realized Nester was in serious heart failure.

"Just about all of his heart was dead on both sides," said Nester's wife, Margaret.

Because both sides of Nester's heart were damaged, he was a candidate for the new device. His doctors informed him of the risk that he could die at any time.

The couple agreed to try the temporary artificial heart.

"I was very confident in their ability," Nester said of his doctors. "After I talked to them, I said, 'I'm in the right hands.' "

On April 3, doctors removed Nester's diseased heart and implanted the total artificial heart in his chest. Doctors left his chest open for several days because of the swelling.

His wife could see the artificial heart beating.

"It was very scary, but it was amazing," Margaret Nester said.

For about 50 days after the operation, Nester was attached to a pump that he nicknamed "Inga." The large, four-wheeled mechanical device -- which pumps up to 9.5 liters of blood per minute through both ventricles, helping to rejuvenate vital organs that have atrophied as a result of a failing heart -- sounded like a car running, Nester recalled.

"I fell in love with it. She kept me alive," Nester said.

Nester's positive attitude cheered the hospital staff, Harton said. He wore tiger-striped scrubs, a purple lei and sunglasses in the hospital, Harton recalled.

"Everybody loved him and his wife," Harton said. "They were fantastic."

Back at home, people at churches in New Castle and Blacksburg who didn't even know Nester were praying for him, his wife said. The staff at Rainbow Riders Child Care Center in Blacksburg, where Margaret Nester works, gave her time off to be with her husband in Richmond, and some of the parents donated money for expenses.

In the meantime, Nester had been placed at the top of transplant lists because he had gotten the artificial heart.

Less than two weeks before his 60th birthday, Nester said he was sitting in his hospital room, looking out the window, when God came and sat on his shoulder.

Nester said God didn't say anything, but looked up at him and smiled.

Nester then told his wife and everyone else that by his birthday, he would have a heart. Soon after, Margaret Nester got a call at work that doctors were pretty sure they had gotten a donor.

On May 25 -- one day before Nester turned 60 -- doctors removed Nester's artificial heart and replaced it with the donor heart. All Nester knows is that it came from an accident victim in South Carolina. Harton said she could not comment on where the heart came from, for confidentiality reasons.

Nester said he knows how lucky he is, because a lot of people die waiting for a heart transplant.

On June 6, Nester left the hospital and returned home.

Nester said he still feels weak but he's started to use a treadmill and weights for short periods of time each day and is returning to Richmond once a week for checkups.

He's looking forward to getting back to his routine: hunting and fishing. He's also started working on house plans and paperwork for his business.

"I just want to get back to my life," Nester said. "But I'm going to take some time and smell some roses along the way."