PATIENT care
airlifted to upstate,
North Country man undergoes lifesaving heart surgery and beats the odds BY EMILY KULKUS
CHRIS DIAZ IS NO STRANGER to fear or pain. Diaz, 35, spent four years in the Army, including nearly a year in Iraq from 2009 to 2010. When you’re in the Army, if something hurts, you drink water and press on. at’s what Diaz tried to do on Nov. 28, 2017, when he felt a surge of pain snake up his le arm and into his chest. Diaz was studying mechanical engineering at Clarkson University at the time, and finals were looming. He figured the pain was related to anxiety or stress because of his exams. “Honestly it felt like razor blades up my veins,” he says. “It felt like something I’d never had before — a crushing sensation around my heart.” He drank water, but the pain got worse. His fiancée, a certified nurse assistant, said he looked pale and was sweating. She insisted he see a doctor. She drove him to the emergency room at Canton-Potsdam Hospital in nearby Potsdam. ere, they listened to his chest and detected a murmur. An ultrasound revealed a much more serious condition: Diaz had an aortic dissection, which is when the large blood vessel of the heart tears. e surging blood can continue to tear the aorta, causing blood that should flow through the heart to spill into the body. In more than 50 percent of cases, the injury is fatal within 24 hours. Without surgery, up to 75 percent of cases are fatal within two weeks. Diaz needed surgery immediately. at’s when his memory of that day gets blurry. He remembers doctors starting pain medicine and telling him he was going to be airlied to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. He remembers the ambulance but not the helicopter. He remembers the airport but not his arrival. Chris Diaz was airlifted to Upstate University Hospital when an ultrasound performed at Canton-Potsdam Hospital showed a tear in a blood vessel in his heart. SUPPLIED PHOTO
If he’d arrived in Syracuse 30 minutes later, he probably would have died.
He definitely remembers what he was thinking at the time: “I’m going to miss my finals because of this. I was just really mad this was going on,” he said. G. Randall Green, MD, chief of cardiac surgery at Upstate, was waiting for Diaz. He asked him if he wanted a mechanical valve or Randall Green, MD, chief of a tissue valve to replace the one G. cardiac surgery that was tearing. Diaz chose mechanical. He woke up many hours later in the recovery room. continued on page 5
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U P S TAT E H E A LT H
upstate.edu l winter 2019
