55-Year-Old Saved from a Life Threatening Condition of a Sudden Cardiac Rupture at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital

• Vinod Kumar, a 55-year-old accountant, suddenly fell unconscious in his office on December 25.
• His colleagues immediately hastened him to Indraprastha Apollo Hospital where the doctors diagnosed that his heart has undergone a sudden rupture.
• It is a lethal complication that occurs in only 1 - 2 per cent of patients experiencing a cardiac arrest.
• With a clean cardiac history and ECG ruling out all possibilities of a heart attack, Kumar did feel weak and feverish a few days before the collapse.
• Dr. Mukesh Goel, senior consultant, Cardio Thoracic & Vascular Surgeon at the hospital explained that accumulation of thick fluid pressing against the heart was prominent in the echocardiogram.   
• The doctors, therefore, planned to open the percardium of his heart to flush out the fluid.
• But during the procedure, they found that it was not fluid but clots of blood along with fresh blood that gushed out of his heart.
• It was then that they discovered that Kumar had sustained a cardiac wound that eventually led to the fatal condition of blood loss and compression.
• Immediately after he was put on the Heart - Lung machine and the doctors started to inspect his heart only to find an inch long wound on the back of the left ventricle.
• By injecting pottasium his heart was stopped and the wound was duly repaired.
• Kumar has steadily recovered after the surgery. 

Source: Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Media Update