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A heart attack followed his son’s death. Then things got worse.

Hector Moreno has suffered more than anyone ever should, but he returned to thank his care team at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center. Pictured, cardiothoracic surgeon Paul LaPunzina, MD, left, reunites with Moreno, 54, who had a life-threatening aortic tear that was successfully repaired at the San Francisco Medical Center.

Hector Moreno, 54, strode into the hospital conference room with a bouquet of flowers and something to say.

“Oh my God, my heroes are here, you guys are angels,” Moreno told 2 surgeons, an intensive care unit nurse, and a perfusionist who all helped save his life and cared for him at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center after he suffered a life-threatening tear in his aorta.

With his wife and daughter looking on, Moreno’s words tumbled out, as if he had been waiting to say them since he left the ICU 3 months earlier. Then he choked up. “What you did is above and beyond the call of duty. Thankful is not enough for me.”

Dr. Lapunzina hugs Moreno’s wife, Sara, after Moreno and his family came to say thank you for their care.

The 2 cardiothoracic surgeons, Paul LaPunzina, MD, chief of the hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Brian Cain, MD, performed open chest surgery over 2 days on Moreno to repair his torn aorta, a condition not everyone survives.

ICU nurse Marybeth Beitzel, RN, took care of Moreno for 2 weeks, and Arianna Grether, a perfusionist, ran the heart-lung machine that kept him alive during the surgery.

“The care I got in this hospital was way more than what their jobs call for,” Moreno told the group. “Even the people who cleaned the rooms would ask me how I was doing, and people would come in and ask me if I needed ice chips for my dry mouth. And they encouraged me to get better.”

Moreno has had more than his share of trouble over the last year. Last summer, his 24-year-old son died of cancer. He missed his son so much, he just wanted to die. Four months later, he had a heart attack that required triple bypass surgery.

Cardiothoracic surgeon Brian Cain, MD, embraces Moreno who came to the hospital to thank his care team, 3 months after open chest surgery.

Then in April, things got worse. He felt short of breath and went to the emergency room. He was told he had a tear in his aorta, with open chest surgery the only option in which 20% of patients don’t survive.

On top of difficult odds of survival, the surgery performed over 2 days was further complicated by the fact that scar tissue from his triple bypass had covered his aorta.

“Having to do this kind of surgery, especially with such dramatic scar tissue just 6 months after a triple bypass, makes it really challenging,” said Dr. LaPunzina. “Only 3 out of 100,000 patients have a dissection in their aorta, and only 50% make it to surgery. We’d like to thank Hector for thanking us. This doesn’t happen very much.”

Moreno survived, even after having a stroke during surgery. Hospital clinicians who work in critical care and the ICU don’t often see patients afterward because most patients don’t remember their time in the hospital, said Jonathan Alexander, MD, chief of the Critical Care Department.

“I can only remember a handful of times when people came back to say hello, but when they do, like today, it’s very powerful, especially when it is a very difficult case like Hector’s,” Dr. Alexander said. “And, like Hector, we usually don’t recognize them because they are so different, physically and mentally, when they return.”

Beitzel, like the others, said taking care of critically ill patients is all part of her job.

“Like you would expect anyone to do, I tried to be compassionate and empathetic,” said Beitzel. “No one is in a good place after open heart surgery, so we do our best to make them comfortable.”

Today, Moreno said he is grateful to be alive, every minute. Even mundane things like waiting for an appointment are fine with him.

“It felt awesome to see the people who cared for me,” Moreno said. “I could have just said ‘see you later’ when I left the ICU, but these are amazing people who didn’t give up on me, so I had to come back. I’m never leaving Kaiser for health care. This is where I belong.”

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