Trailblazing heart procedure helps save lives of 3 children in New York thanks to donation
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, Manhattan (WABC) -- A trailblazing heart procedure that had never been done in New York until now, has helped to the save the lives of three children.
Teddy and John, two boys from different families, are now running around as though they had no medical challenges eight months ago.
Their little hearts are now pumping beautifully because they each received a heart valve that came from a little girl's heart. Hend is 10 years old and desperately needed a heart transplant.
Once she received a heart from a deceased donor, doctors were able to take working valves from her removed, no longer working heart, and put those valves in the boys.
Teddy likes to show off what he calls his "super scar."
"It took 20 hours and four bananas. I had to eat something," said Dr. David Kalfa of New York Presbyterian.
Dr. Kalfa and Dr. Andrew Goldstone at New York Presbyterian, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, performed these very rare, and incredible surgeries.
Recently, all three kids met up, and Hend even gave them more gifts in addition to her old heart valves.
The amazing thing is these are living heart valves, so they will continue to grow in the little boys' bodies, and they already are growing, so that hopefully means no more surgeries.
"He's fearless. We call him Johnny Knoxville," said John's mother Joann Dowling.
"They said his heart looks normal, basically like he never had surgery, like nothing ever happened," said Teddy's parents John and Katie Carter.
All of these parents are organ donors, realizing that donations can work miracles.
"When you're on the other end of this, you see the sacrifice and what it can do for people, it's so amazing," John Carter said.
"And three little kids were saved because of this, so it's amazing," Katie Carter said.
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