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In honor of Heart Health Month, we share the stories of three survivors.
They didn’t all have heart attacks.
They didn’t all have the classic warnings signs.
But their stories of survival prove that every second counts, and that there’s nothing more vital than a healthy heart.
Bob McAllister
‘We all want to live to be 100’
Bob McAllister’s goal is to die of old age.
Having a heart attack wasn’t part of the 54-year-old’s master plan.
Still, he feels lucky that he had his in June, while he was still young, fit and healthy enough to turn his life around.
The Hilton Head Island father of four had already started his journey to a healthier lifestyle when he began having chest pains on June 28.
He had recently lost nearly 50 pounds under the supervision of a doctor and was following a fitness plan. He was walking regularly and on a diet. At 225 pounds, he felt much more fit.
But after work that night, his chest started hurting.
“I did what any American, red-blooded male would do,” he said. “I ate some Rolaids. I figured it was heartburn. I got the heart part right, but it was not heartburn.”
After about 10 minutes of feeling like he’d been punched in the chest, his wife, Heidi, convinced him to go to the hospital.
Luckily the couple lives at Palmetto Hall and his wife is a fast driver, he said. Shortly after arriving at the Hilton Head Hospital Emergency Room, an EKG confirmed he was having a heart attack.
The pain quickly subsided and he thought he would go home soon after. A cardiologist convinced him to stay – a decision that probably saved his life.
It turns out one coronary artery was 99.9 percent blocked. Another was about 80 percent closed.
The doctor went to work, quickly inserting two stints. McAllister watched the entire procedure on a monitor, and by 11 p.m. he was in intensive care, watching the University of South Carolina win the College World Series.
The gravity of what had happened still hadn’t settled in. He didn’t realize how much danger he’d been in until after he was released from the hospital and started researching his condition.
“The one thing that stunned me, startled me, and I would tell anybody (is), I was only in pain for a few minutes. And it wasn’t debilitating pain, but it was something that was deadly serious,” he said. “It dawned on me, ‘hey, you could have died, idiot.’”
With heart attacks, time is crucial because the longer one waits to get help, the more muscle damage there is to the heart, he said.
The seriousness of the situation certainly wasn’t lost on him for long. He entered cardiac rehab and threw himself into getting well. Even after he graduated from the rehab program after 12 weeks, he continues to go, at his own expense. Cardiac rehab at the hospital is like a clean gym, run by nurses who can monitor any problems.
Months later he still works out there almost every morning, with a group of other survivors who put in hours each week riding stationary bikes, treadmilling briskly and lifting weights.
“We all want to beat heart disease,” he said. “We want to live to be 100.”
He’s also much fitter than just before his heart attack. He plays basketball and says he wants to be the grandfather that isn’t talked about in the past tense.
He still takes medication for blood pressure and cholesterol and daily low dose aspirin. He hopes someday he won’t have to take them all.
He had no family history of heart problems and feels bad that the rest of his clan now have to report his episode.
“I had to call my 95-year-old grandmother and tell her I had a heart attack and she said, ‘We don’t do that!’” he said. “I was an unlikely heart attack suffer because I didn’t have all the (warning signs) they list. It just goes to show it can happen to anyone... The only real requirement for a heart attack is to have a heart.”
Lori Bonzagni
When a flu shot triggered a heart attack, this Hardeeville woman’s swift response saved her life.
The first week of November started off like any other for Lori Bonzagni.
On Tuesday, she went to a gym as usual before going to work at Bluffton Self Help. The 52-year-old Hardeeville woman was fit and feeling fine. On Wednesday, she went to work and then to a doctor for a routine flu shot. She received a tetanus shot too, because she was long overdue.
Thursday wasn’t as smooth. She worked out again that morning before work, even though she was already tired. That night she felt uncomfortable, but attributed it to indigestion. She went to bed early.
Still tired, she exercised again Friday morning before work, not knowing that within hours her life would hang in the balance.
That night, the indigestion she thought she had took on a new feel.
“It was like an elephant sitting on my chest,” she said later. “My husband finally convinced me after I got sick to go to the hospital.”
Just before midnight on Nov. 4, she checked into Coastal Carolina Hospital. They slipped some medicine under her tongue and transferred her to Hilton Head Hospital.
“They treated me for a heart attack when I got there,” Bonazgni said. “It was a shock. It still is.”
Unlike many patients, Bonazgni had experienced few typical symptoms. She had no family history of heart disease and her health had always been good. She exercised and watched her diet. She was experiencing flu-like symptoms.
Tests revealed that she was suffering from myopericarditis and had fluid around her heart.
Doctors were confident any damage could be reversed and put her on medications for blood pressure and cholesterol. They confirmed that she’d suffered a heart attack and could have even died had she not sought treatment.
Bonzagni was lucky. She didn’t require surgery and Nov. 7 she was released from the hospital.
She had to take it easy for a few weeks and is still taking medication, but hopes to be off them soon.
“My doctor said when they saw me at the end of January that they hope I’m working out like I was before the heart attack,” she said.
And she is. The episode has made her even more conscious of eating right and exercising to stay healthy. It’s also convinced her of the importance of seeking help fast when something doesn’t feel right. She’s always been a positive person but realizes more than ever that each day is precious.
“It can change so quickly,” she said.
Stephen Kiritsy
A slight pain and some early detection helped one island man survive a congenital heart defect and a near-fatal aneurysm.
At age 56, Stephen Kiritsy never imagined he’d find himself on an operating table with his chest cut open.
The Hilton Head Island man blamed his golf swing when he started having pain in his left lower rib cage. He thought it might be a pulled muscle or torn ligament. But after three weeks, the owner of A Floral Affair was feeling no better and went to his doctor.
A CAT sign of his lower abdomen showed nothing wrong there, but happened to catch a glimpse of a very dangerous surprise in the upper part of his chest.
Kiritsy had an ascending aortic aneurysm. If not fixed quickly, it would likely take his life—most people who have one die without ever knowing. A second test found another anomaly. He had a bicuspid aortic valve—a congenital defect that occurs in 1 to 2 percent of the population. That valve had only two leaflets instead of the usual three—and it was leaking.
No one knows if the pain he’d felt had anything to do with his condition. But those tests gave him time to get surgery before the aneurysm burst.
“I got pretty lucky there,” he said.
Kiritsy went into surgery at St. Joseph Candler on Oct. 25. It took four and a half hours to cut out the section of aorta with the aneurysm and replace it with mesh tubing. The faulty valve was replaced with a titanium St. Jude valve.
His wife, Dawn, and son, Matt, were at his bedside when he woke.
Four days later he went home with a heart that ticks like a “Timex,” he said.
The first weeks were painful, but now he’s exercising and golfing again.
He’ll likely take a blood thinner the rest of his life to keep clots from forming on the metallic valve. But his heart is healthy.
Unlike most patients who have open heart surgery, he had no blockages or blood clots and didn’t need cardiac rehabilitation. His cholesterol and blood pressure are in normal range. He didn’t have a heart attack.
“I just had a bad valve and a bad hose,” he said.
The experience has made him a little more easy going.
“I try to get as much as I can out of each day,” he said. “I just don’t think my wife was ready for me to leave yet. I certainly wasn’t ready to leave.”
