A Metro Vancouver boy has beaten the odds and made history. The 13-year-old has received the world's tiniest heart pump. It's a remarkable story, because less than a week ago, he was near death.
Sikander Sahota is a survivor. On Saturday, the 13-year-old became really sick.
"My lungs started hurting and stuff, I couldn't bend my neck, So I couldn't breathe so good,'' he said.
At first, his mom didn't think it was that serious. She thought it was just the flu.
But her son was persistent
"He made me to take him to the hospital," said Mandeep Sahota, Sikander's mother.
"He kept saying mom, I'm not breathing, I'm dying, take me to the hospital."
It's a good thing she did.
The 13-year-old had Viral Myocarditis, an infection that was destroying his heart muscle.
But the doctor's at Saint Paul's Hospital knew what to do.
Sikander would receive the Impella, the tiniest heart pump in the world.
Dr. Anson Cheung of the Providence Heart & Lung Institute said there would have been only one outcome without the procedure. "He would have died,'' he said.
The device was inserted in his groin and travelled all the way up into his heart chamber.
Doctors hoped it would give his heart a rest, so Sikander could heal.
"When this is turned on, the propeller here spins about 30,000 rpm and draws about 5 litres of blood,'' said Cheung.
It's believed he is the youngest patient ever to use the pump. And it worked.
Sikander found the hospital boring and the pump rather uncomfortable. But two days later it was taken out.
And Sikander knows how lucky he is. "I could have died,'' he said.
In just two weeks, he'll be able to live a normal life. In fact he's been given the ok to play soccer.
With a report by CTV British Columbia's St. John Alexander
