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>> DAN SULLIVAN: I lived a really good life, doing a lot of travelling, a lot of sailing,
having fun.
That’s me. At the steering wheel.
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Then I had a heart attack out at sea on a boat.
The hospital said ‘it’s too late, he’s pretty much a goner.’
Then a week and a half later, I came out of the coma. They started calling me the miracle
man,
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I spent most of last year in the hospital or confined to my bed.
>> LINDA SULLIVAN: He couldn’t be left alone because he couldn’t get out of bed without
support. It was that serious.
>> DAN SULLIVAN: They didn’t think I’d survive an open heart surgery. Then Linda,
my wife, found this study that was under way for repairing heart valves without open heart
surgery and there were only a few hospitals in the country that were doing it.
We thought for sure one of the hospitals in Boston would be doing it, but they weren’t.
The closet one was Maine Medical Center.
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>> Dr. BUD KELLETT: There was no other site in New England. And so, having a site in New
England meant there was access for patients closer to home.
Maine Med has a long history of a very active valve surgery program. Getting this study
was very important to us in our vision of being a full service valve center.
The MitraClip device is designed to treat a leaky mitral valve. For all valves, we’re
looking for ways to do it less-invasively, with lower risk to patients.
We’re able to treat people who we used to look at and say, ‘you’re too sick. You
could never recover from an open heart operation.
>> DAN SULLIVAN: On December 26-th, they did the procedure. It was absolutely the best
Christmas present I’ve ever had.
The people up there, they make you feel as though you’re the most important person
on earth.
I spent one night there after the procedure, so it was just in and out.
Almost immediately, I began to feel better. I could get out of bed, I could walk up stairs.
>> LINDA SULLIVAN: People will come up to us, no matter where we are, and they can’t
believe it’s the same man.
>> DAN SULLIVAN: This is what I do to try to stay in shape.
>> LINDA SULLIVAN: Last year, he never talked about the future. There was no future. And
now he talks about, he wants to race, he wants to travel.
>> DAN SULLIVAN: I just bought a new little sail boat so I could race and I haven’t
raced in years.
My life is coming back.
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