CLINTON TOWNSHIP, MI--On the morning of June 10, 58-year-old Bill Van Vianen went for a routine run near his home at the picturesque Dodge Park in Sterling Heights; the beginning of a day that was to include watching his grandson compete in a sporting event.
But a little more than an hour later, the fitness buff and marathoner was admitted as a John Doe to Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township — the victim of a heart attack that he, and everyone close to him, found beyond inexplicable.
“I love to run, and fitness has been a big part of my life since high school,” said Van Vianen, who works as a mechanic for the U.S. postal Service.
“I eat right — I don’t eat red meat,” he said. “But now, I can’t even remember what happened to me.”
It turns out Van Vianen had a blocked coronary artery, which caused his heart to go into a dangerous arrhythmia. He joins about 785,000 Americans who have a first heart attack a year, according to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control.
A woman walking a dog observed Van Vianen fall, and called 9-1-1, and two men, one of whom had passed Van Vianen on the path earlier in the morning, performed CPR until the paramedics arrived.
After he was whisked away by ambulance to Henry Ford Macomb, physicians were able to not only save his life, but also his brain function using a treatment called therapeutic hypothermia, a treatment used on patients of cardiac arrest. During therapeutic hypothermia, a patient is cooled to between 32 and 34 degrees Celsius from about 36.6 degrees as soon as possible, up to 24 hours, after the cardiac arrest. They are slowly warmed back up to normal after 24 hours.
The treatment preserves heart and neurological function by decreasing the metabolic demands on the brain, said Prabhat Sinha, DO, an intensivist at the hospital.
“This method can be effective for patients with poor neurological status, who a witness sees lose consciousness,” Dr. Sinha said. “The hypothermia must be induced within 24 hours. In Mr. Van Vianen’s case, he was unconscious and because the woman on the trail saw him fall, we know when he had the heart attack.”
Innovative treatment
Though there are documented cases of using hypothermia — or lowering the body temperature causing a period of low blood flow — as far back as the 1950s, the American Heart Association formally endorsed therapeutic hypothermia following cardiac arrest in 2003.
In Van Vianen’s case, doctors made the decision to perform a heart catheterization and place a stent in his coronary artery after he regained consciousness. Sinha said a catheterization would be performed first if the heart is not functioning at all, but because Van Vianen was stabilized and unconscious, the larger worry was loss in brain function.
For his part, Van Vianen was discharged from Henry Ford Macomb four days after he was admitted. He said he has had no issues and is grateful for the treatment.
“This could have turned out much worse,” he said. “The staff at the hospital was great.”
Unexpected development
When a person watches what they eat, jogs five days a week and runs in marathons and half marathons, the last thing they might expect is a heart attack. But looking back, Van Vianen said there were some warning signs.
“I did feel like something wasn’t right,” he said. “I didn’t feel pain, I felt pressure. And I didn’t take it seriously.”
Van Vianen’s medical checkups turned up nothing out of the ordinary, but blocked arteries can occur quickly, he was told.
Heredity also can play a role, even if a person takes care of his or herself.
“My cholesterol was fine, my blood pressure was fine,” he said. “But my father had heart disease, and I think that has a lot to do with it.”
One thing Van Vianen has learned is to never ignore physical cues, even if they seem minor, and to carry identification with him when he runs. He’s also grateful for the three people who helped him at the park that fateful morning of June 10.
Van Vianen’s wife, Roxanne, is amazed by his recovery. She said the nurses and entire Henry Ford Macomb staff were great. “They saved his life,” she said. “It was very scary, and that first day was long, but he made it.”
SOURCE: The Macomb Daily