Mom Nearly Dies When Her Aorta Bursts
CHICAGO (CBS) - A young healthy woman suddenly finds herself in a life or death situation. What happened to her usually happens to older men. And, when it's as bad as it was for her, the outcome is usually fatal.
But, her quick thinking and desire to live led to a very different outcome, CBS 2's Kate Sullivan reports.
On a quiet day in Western Springs, Rhonda Mullen was working inside a bank, helping a customer, when suddenly something went terribly wrong.
"I felt a stabbing pain behind my shoulder blades," she said. "I couldn't catch my breath."
She called her husband, Glenn, who said his wife was in so much pain she was slurring her speech.
Somehow she managed to get in her car and drive herself to a nearby emergency room.
"On my way to the hospital my right leg went numb, kinda tingly at first, and then completely lost all feeling," Rhonda said. "I just thought about my family and got focused and just kinda pushed down on my leg."
By the time she reached the hospital, both legs and her left arm were numb. She was quickly transferred to Loyola University Medical Center, where she was put on a ventilator.
No one knows why, but the main artery from her heart, the aorta, had split in two, filling her chest cavity with blood and cutting off the flow to both of her legs.
"I really went immediately from being concerned just about saving her legs to really being concerned about saving her life," Loyola cardiac surgeon Ross Milner said.
He decided to operate and went over all the possibilities with Rhonda and Glenn. Would she ever walk again? Or wake up after surgery?
During the four-hour surgery, Dr. Milner bypassed the torn aorta with a 2 ½-foot-long Goretex tube. He thought it would take days for Rhonda to just wake up after the four-hour surgery. But the next morning she had already opened her eyes.
"To have her look at me and smile was almost too much," Glenn, her husband, said.
And, miraculously, she was able to move both legs a little bit. After months of rehab, Rhonda is able to walk again, play with her children and cherish precious moments with her husband.
"You know what is important to you, but to think that you could have lost it all really puts it in perspective," she said.
Rhonda had none of the risk factors for a ruptured aorta. It's still a mystery why this happened to her, but she must be checked for any problems every few months.
