Intermountain Healthcare recently became the first in Utah to perform a new life-saving, less invasive heart procedure that benefits Antonio Gomez, right. (Nilsa Gomez)
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SALT LAKE CITY — Intermountain Healthcare recently became the first in Utah to perform a new life-saving, less invasive heart procedure.
“It was a real miracle for us, for our family,” said Nilsa Gomez, whose husband underwent the new procedure.
Antonio Gomez, 64, lived a healthy and full life filled with family.
However, one day he accidentally felt excruciating pain.
“Everything just kind of hit full force, I started having some debilitating pain in my chest … I was in excruciating pain, I wasn’t sure what was going on,” he said.
He had an aortic aneurysm and was in intensive care for 22 days, doctors told his wife he had bleeding in his heart, she said she was worried he would have to have open heart surgery.
“We prayed a lot for him and his recovery, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Nilsa Gomez said.
She said he came home from the hospital for a few weeks, he was a very independent person before and suddenly he couldn’t do anything for himself.
“He was very sick, it wasn’t normal, he wasn’t my husband at all,” she said.
Intermountain Health cardiologists John Doty and Evan Brownie noticed that Antonio Gomez’s aorta had doubled in size in the month since his aneurysm.
“Unfortunately, it’s not healing. It just kept growing and getting bigger and it became dangerous to burst,” Doty said.
That’s when doctors approached the family with a new procedure that could help Antonio Gomez without having to do open heart surgery, called a thoracic artery bypass graft.
They were able to repair Antonio Gomez’s aortic aneurysm by inserting a stent graft through his blood vessels.
“This device allows us to treat diseases like Antonio’s with … just a puncture in the arteries,” Brownie said.
The new procedure allows surgeons to maintain blood flow to the brain throughout the operation and can reduce recovery time from several weeks to just a few days.
Antonio Gomez was released from the hospital a day after surgery in October and is now back to work and back to celebrating life with his family.
“I’m so thankful for everyone who took care of me in those days,” he said.
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Ayanna LikensAyanna Likens is an Emmy Award-winning special projects reporter for KSL-TV.
