[Music playing]

[Ohio State Health & Discovery
Siblings have aortic dissection months apart]

Earlie: I woke up with heartburn.

[Text on screen: 
Larry and Earlie
Siblings]

Earlie: I took heartburn medication. Four hours later, my jaw started hurting, and my arm. I was forced to go to the hospital by some friends. On the way there, though, it felt like somebody had pulled the battery out of my back. When they actually did a procedure on me to see what was going on, they stopped everything, brought me back upstairs, strapped me to a bed, and put me on a helicopter to Ohio State. They gave me a CT scan right off the bat and they told my brother what was going on. 

[Text on screen:
Samuel
Brother of Larry and Earlie]

Samuel: She was saying that Earlie might not live. She might die. It shook me to the core. 

[Text on screen:
Matthew Henn, MD
Cardiac surgeon
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Matthew Henn, MD: Aorta is kind of the main blood vessel that comes off the heart. It's, you know, where all your blood gets pumped with each heartbeat. And an aortic dissection happens when you have a tear in the inner lining. 

Earlie: It did not really hit me, the gravity of the situation, until my goddaughters came to visit me later that day. Like, 'oh my god, we almost lost you, you can't,' and that was when it was like, 'Oh, this was big.' The way that Dr. Henn cared for me, the staff, I didn't feel like a patient.

Larry: May 4th. Woke up. I felt something pop right here in my chest and I heard it too. And I didn't, it just kept burning. My wife, she said, 'Larry, you want to go to the hospital cause you don't, you don't seem right.' So I said, 'yeah, take me to the hospital.' They said, 'who you root for?' And I said, 'Hold on, this ain't gonna change nothing is it?' I said, 'I'm Michigan.' [Laughing] So we get in there. One of the guys driving the ambulance said, 'he's a Michigan fan.' I said, oh. [Laughing]

Larry: So we sitting in there. They get me prepped and my brother come in. Dr. Henn walked in and, I looked at him. Sam looked at him and said, 'hey, you did my sister's surgery.'

Samuel: And I knew my brother was in good hands. 

Matthew Henn, MD: That was a, that was a very special moment. 

Larry: I'm looking at Dr. Henn, I'm like, 'I'm gonna be alright.' 

Matthew Henn, MD: The odds of, of having that type of scenario with, you know, me as the surgeon and our hospital and their family member had already gone through it a couple months earlier. Just, just a very special moment and, and the odds are extremely long that that would actually happen. 

Samuel: After my brother got out of his surgery, Dr. Henn walked in and then he immediately said, I need to get tested. And then once he told me that, I just, I was like, I'm on it. 

Earlie: We're so fortunate to be able to have the testing, to be able to, you know, if I was the warning bell, Larry was the alarm, Sam get on it.

Matthew Henn, MD: It's a very humbling experience to be able to play a part in somebody who is in a really bad spot, you know, life or death spot. I take a lot of pride in, you know, being a part of that team. 

Larry: When I did go home, I said, 'I'm going to be an Ohio State Buckeye fan for the rest of my life.' They saved my life. Michigan who? [Laughing]

[Text on screen: Ohio State Health & Discovery
For more information, visit:
wexnermedical.osu.edu/heart]

[Music fades]