Experienced doctor races to save patient's life

A doctor from a hospital in Jinhua city, Zhejiang province, recently brought back a patient from the verge of death by completing a stent surgery in just 90 seconds, CCTV News reported on Saturday.

When the 57-year-old patient, surnamed Huang, was rushed to the Fourth Hospital affiliated with Zhejiang University's School of Medicine, he presented symptoms of intense coughing and back pain, suggesting that he might have suffered aortic dissection, a serious medical emergency. A CT scan later showed that Huang's aorta had ruptured and his chest cavity was filling with fluid.

Lou Yanbo, a vascular surgeon on shift that day, was tasked with inserting a stent to seal the rupture, the fastest and most effective intervention method.

However, Huang's femoral artery unexpectedly lost its pulse right as an insertion channel was established, and his heart came to a stop as his blood pressure flat-lined.

At that very moment, an idea flashed in Lou's mind: Would the patient still have a chance if the stent could be settled into his body as quickly as possible?

"If the ischemia persists long enough, it can cause irreversible brain damage. The emergency didn't allow us to take time to do an angiogram and mark the location of blood vessels step by step as we originally planned," Lou said.

So he injected some contrast dye into Huang's body, which helped produce a vague image on the surgical display. Depending only on his experience, Lou placed the stent without any vascular masking. The whole process, which usually takes 10 minutes or more, was completed within only a minute and a half.

With other medical workers taking turns performing external chest compression and providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation for Huang, his heart started beating again.