The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : His heart beat the `attack'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 16, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

His heart beat the `attack'

Staff Reporter

VISAKHAPATNAM: For 25-year-old Bharat Ray, an engineering student from Berhampur (Orissa), it was a fresh lease of life. "But for the timely intervention by the doctors of Apollo Hospital here, I would have been dead by now," says Bharat.

He had suffered a massive heart attack on October 8. His parents -- G.C. Roy and Sangeeta -- consulted a physician at Berhampur, who advised them to rush him to Apollo Hospital. Doctors said his heart had stopped beating. The emergency team under cardiologist Dr. D.K. Baruah gave him repeated DC shocks.

His heart was revived, but it remained weak. He was put on heart support medicine and a support device called intra-aortic balloon pump and kept in Critical Intensive Care Unit (CICU).

Diagnosis

Dr. Baruah told reporters on Tuesday that Bharat recovered in two days and was taken off all support devices.

He was shifted to a ward and on October 20, an angiogram was performed which revealed that the main artery in his heart was completely blocked and his heart function had come down to 25 per cent of normal rate.

Dr. Baruah, who is also the director of cathlab, said that Bharat's heart beat rate became irregular and his blood pressure too dropped.

He was put on medicines to control heart rate irregularity. Finally, the surgery team headed by chief cardio-thoracic surgeon, Dr.P.V. Naresh Kumar, decided to conduct a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG).

A `first'

In a first of its kind, the operation was performed on `beating heart' due to deteriorating condition of Bharat.

Dr. Baruah said that they could do a bypass graft to the blocked artery of heart on `beating heart'.

He recovered fast and was taken off the ventilator the next day.

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