Patient
Dr. Ted Spooner happened to be in the Park Nicollet Hispital in St. Louis Park, MN at the time I visited an Urgent care not far away on 10/16/2010. I had an aortic aneurysm that had begun to be symptomatic a day earlier but I travelled to the Minneapolis area to teach the second day. Urgent care sent me directly to Patk Nicollet where Dr. Spooner was just finished with a long surgery. The surgical team prepped me for open heart surgery, a procedure Dr. Spooner had designed himself. It took between 13 and 14 hours but I lived through it because of special handling and implanting a bio prosthetic in a special way sewed in and reinforced with felt. When the Dr. visited my ICU he was surprised I was coherent and talking in various languages as friends and family came and went. I had been without oxygen circulation for 37 minutes but I was still clear, if talkative, being excited to be alive. I was lucky to find Dr. Spooner in the hospital that day and thank God every day for that coincidence. It was estimated I might live another five years but it is now 2025 so I have been blessed with ten years more than I might have had.