Tim Deits’ heart failed three times on Nov. 11.
The first time, the 16-year-old’s parents found him unconscious at
their Huntington Beach home.
His father, Ted, was able to resuscitate him with CPR, but his heart failed
again in transit to
Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach and then again in the emergency room.
That day, both sides of Tim’s heart stopped working, Ted said. Doctors
initially gave the athletic Edison High School sophomore a 10% chance
of survival.
But some six months later, after what his family considers a miraculous
turn of events, Tim’s life is nearly back to normal.
He will, however, have to live with the condition that caused his heart
failures, arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, or ARVD.
‘Angel looking out for him’
When Tim arrived at the hospital, doctors decided to go with a rare procedure:
install Impella pumps into each side of his heart.
The pumps — less than a quarter-inch wide — are inserted into
the bloodstream and, through the use of a motor, push blood to the rest
of the body, said Dr. Anthony Caffarelli, who helped organize the procedure.
The left pump has been used in medicine for years, but the right pump had
recently been given approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The right pump had been on Hoag’s shelves for only two days before
Tim’s arrival, and no other hospital in Orange County has it.
According to AbioMed, the company that produces the pumps, Tim is only
the second pediatric patient in the world to undergo the procedure, Caffarelli said.
“[Tim’s] got a little angel looking out for him,” he said.
The Impellas took the strain off Tim’s heart while he was put in
a medically induced coma for days.
The doctors then slowly weaned his heart off the pumps until it could work
on its own.
Tim was released from the hospital on Thanksgiving.
He was, Cafarelli said, “rescued from the ditches of death.”
ARVD is a genetic condition that causes fatty tissue to replace parts of
the heart muscle, resulting in a weakening of the heart’s ability
to pump blood.
Caffarelli said the first sign of the disease is usually heart failure
during teenage years. Many patients die from it.
‘Going to be the same person’
Ted Deits said there is no cure for his son’s condition and that
he will live with an implanted defibrillator on top of his left chest
wall to shock his heart back into rhythm if it fails.
Tim said the defibrillator is uncomfortable, but if it saves his life,
he’ll put up with it.
“No matter what goes on in my life, I am still going to be the same
person,” he said. “I’m not going to let it affect my
daily life.”
Before November, there had never been any sign that Tim had a serious health
issue, his father said.
Tim is an energetic kid who plays hockey for Edison High and spent seven
years in the Huntington Beach Junior Lifeguards program.
“If it bounces or rolls, he’s all over it,” Ted said
of his son’s love for sports.
Tim is already back to his athletic ways, skiing a few weeks ago with his
father in the demanding high altitude of Mammoth.
Though he may have to abandon his dream of being in the Army, he’s
set his sights on studying bio-mechanical engineering in college.
“It has been tough not being able to do the things I used to do,”
Tim said. But, he added, “I’m going to keep giving 100% in
everything I do.”