The sudden pain of a mother was a mortal heart condition. An ultrasound on an iPhone helped save his life.

Sara Adair knows the symptoms of aortic dissections. The father and sister of the hospital analyst experienced the dangerous heart condition, when the internal lining of the main rags of the body is destroyed and makes the aorta separate.

Aortic dissections can be mortal and are difficult to diagnose. Both the father and the sister of Adair survived, but after the aortic dissection of his sister at the age of 49, Adair was determined to know why it had happened. She, her father and her sister were diagnosed with Loeyys-Dietz syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects body connective tissues.

Adair, mother of two children, learned the symptoms, saw a cardiologist and had regular scanning of his aorta. There were no warning signs. On July 22, 2024, he spent the afternoon attending sports tournaments and a party in the pool with their children. It was just another day on a “super busy weekend,” he told CBS News, and felt “completely normal.” When they finally came home at 9 pm, she sat down to relax.

“Suddenly, my chest began to hurt. I felt good all day, completely normal, after suddenly this overwhelming, horrible chest pain that I had never felt before,” said Adair. “It was long enough to think ‘Oh, is this really what I think is?'”

The sudden pain of chest or back that moves to the neck is a key symptom of aortic dissection. It was exactly what had happened to Adair’s sister. It was a feeling that I had been fearing.

“The pain advanced to my neck, and then I thought, ‘that’s fine, that is. This is serious,” he said. “I got up to tell my husband to call 911, but I arrived at the living room where I was and only collapsed on the floor.”

What is Loeys-Dietz syndrome?

Loeys-Dietz syndrome is a rare genetic condition that affects the connective tissues of the body. Aortic aneurysms and dissections are a common risk for a person diagnosed with the disorder, said Dr. Hiroo Takayama, head of adult cardiac surgery at the Irving Medical Center of Newyork-Presbyterian/Columbia University.

The condition management includes regular citations of cardiology and scanning of the heart and aorta. Takayama said that some patients can be prescribed with heart medications, and patients can also receive surgical treatment called aortic root replacement to prevent tears in the aorta.

Almost all patients with Dietz will need surgery in their aorta: it is just a matter of whether it will be a programmed preventive procedure or an emergency, Takayama said.

Adair had been having regular checks, but the tests had not shown anything worrying.

“I obtained all the images that was supposed to do so, but it was not detectable until it exploded,” Adair told CBS News.

Make a rapid diagnosis when “time is also working”

Although Adair knew what was happening to him, he fought to communicate it to the first to respond. Her husband insisted that she was taken to the emergency room at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where she worked. The paramedics conducted a diagnostic test that indicated that it was having a “great heart attack”, according to Dr. Partho P. Sengarta, head of cardiology of the hospital that supervised Adair’s care team.

Despite similar symptoms, the treatment for a heart attack is very different from what a person who has an aortic dissection will need, and that is part of what makes aortic dissections so mortal, Sengarta explained.

“More than 50% of people (with aortic dissections) never arrive at the hospital. Of those who arrive at the hospital, their time is also working, because with every hour the correct surgery delays, it has an increase of 1 to 2% in mortality,” said Senguta.

In the emergency room, a fellow cardiology could make the correct diagnosis. Dr. Shawn Chawla, Who trained under Senguta, used an attention point ultrasound to examine Adair. The device is a probe that connects to an iPhone, turning the device into a portable ultrasound system. The scan showed the big tear in Adair’s aorta, Sengarta said. Adair was sent for a computerized tomography to confirm the diagnosis, then underwent open heart surgery performed by the cardiac surgeon Dr. Hirohisa Ikegami.

“I know it was the ultrasound I had in the emergency room what saved me,” said Adair. “If they had treated me a heart attack and brought me, say, to the laboratory of cardiac catalogs, or if I did not go to the computed tomography and obtain the diagnostic tests that I needed, I could have bleeding.”

Recover after open heart surgery

Adair had collapsed on a Sunday night, and woke up until Tuesday. She said he barely remembered anything that happened after she fell.

The operation had not been without complications. He had had a stroke during surgery, which left her with some weakness in the left arm and slightly blurred vision. The fluid picked up around his lungs and heart, creating respiratory difficulties. He spent several days at the ICU.

Even after being discharged from the hospital, all that Adair could think was the night he collapsed and the terror he felt “knowing exactly what was happening, feeling that he raised his neck and knowing that he had a really limited amount of time to receive the right treatment.”

She has spent months in cardiac rehabilitation and has several blood clots that must still be resolved. Despite the setbacks, it is considered lucky.

“I think the worst has happened,” he said.

The only thing he fears is what the genetic tests for their children and their nieces will show. Children have dating scheduled to be tested for Loeyys-Dietz syndrome. If necessary, they will begin to see a cardiologist who can monitor their health.