The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced Wednesday.
Bennett's son praised the hospital for offering the last-ditch experiment, saying the family hoped it would help further efforts to end the organ shortage.
Bennett, a handyman from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a candidate for this newest attempt only because he otherwise faced certain death - ineligible for a human heart transplant, bedridden and on life support, and out of other options.
At first, the pig heart was functioning, and the Maryland hospital issued periodic updates that Bennett seemed to be slowly recovering.
Last month, the hospital released a video of him watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed while working with his physical therapist.
Bennett survived significantly longer with the gene-edited pig heart than one of the last milestones in xenotransplantation - when Baby Fae, a dying California infant, lived 21 days with a baboon's heart in 1984.
"We are devastated by the loss of Mr Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought to the end," Dr Bartley Griffith, who performed the surgery at the Baltimore hospital, said in a statement.
