A 73-year-old Bandon man says he’s feeling better than he did when he was in his 60s after a near-death experience last year.
In February 2021, Bob Vann suffered a heart attack. Doctors gave him a slim chance at survival.
“I had a 2% chance of living,” Vann said.
“He had a hole in the heart between two important chambers, the right ventricle and the left ventricle. We have a lot of babies that are born with holes in their hearts, but babies are able to tolerate it, and they’ll eventually get surgery and they’ll do just fine.” Dr. Ashok Venkataraman, a cardiothoracic surgeon at RiverBend said. “Adults who have lived until 70 years of age and have a normal heart, if they suddenly have a hole in their heart from a heart attack, they usually don’t do very well very quickly.”
Dr. Venkataraman said Vann’s condition was a pretty high mortality condition, and even doing emergency surgery to fix the hole in his heart is very highly risky.
The Impella pump is the world’s smallest heart pump. It’s a piece of technology that doctors say they’re seeing more success with. In Vann’s case, it was inserted into his heart and remained there for 12 days.
“All five patients who have had this post infarction ventricular septal defect that have come through this hospital in the last years have actually survived with this pump assist technology,” Dr. Venkataraman said.
See the full segment: Bandon man survives near-death experience thanks to world’s smallest heart pump
