HEALTHY LIVING TIPS FROM
‘It saved my life’
There is nothing scarier than going for a routine check-up and
finding out you have a life-threatening condition.
This is exactly what happened to Brigantine Local 204 member
Chris Hurst.
He came to Deborah for a routine cardiac and pulmonary screening as part of the “A Gift from Captain Buscio” program, a specialty
half-day no-cost screening offered to NJ police officers and firefighters.
“I met with Dr. Sena for my initial consult and testing,” recalled
Hurst. “I thought everything was fine until he said, ‘I think you need
to come back for further tests.’”
The 42-year-old father of two was surprised, but not worried. An
avid boater, cyclist and sportsman
who loves vigorous outside play with
his children, he felt in the peak of
health. Subsequent testing and a cardiac catheterization proved otherwise.
“We found that Chris had an atrial
septal defect, or ASD; this is a hole in
the atrial septum, the wall that normally separates the left and right atrium,” explained Richard Kovach, MD,
Chair of Deborah’s Interventional Cardiology Program. “There was blood
moving across this defect from the left
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to the right side of the heart, and we needed to close that hole before
he had serious consequences. So much blood was moving across
the se