MORGANTOWN – Everything came together to save the life of Mike Howell when he suffered a pulmonary embolism in early January.
He got to Mon Health Medical Center emergency room in time. The doctor who could save him was there and had a life-saving tool that just a few years ago wasn’t on the market.
“It impressed upon me, the right place at the right time, the right person, the right procedure,” Howell said. “It went from me being really panicked to let’s go.”
Howell owns Morgantown-based Arrow Engineering. On Wednesday, Jan. 3, after leaving the office, he blacked out then woke up, head bleeding, chest hurting. He first thought about going home and resting, then thought better of it and went to Mon Health emergency room.
The scan showed he had a saddle pulmonary embolism (PE) – a type of blood clot that extended into both lungs. “I remember the ER nurse using adjectives like ‘It’s gigantic’ to describe it.”
Mon Health cardiologist Krishna Kishore Bingi picked up the story from there. He was on his way out the door to pick up his son at 5:30 p.m. at daycare. He got the call from the ER, came back inside, saw Howell, and ordered the procedure because it couldn’t wait.
“Fortunately he woke up,” Bingi said. “Sometimes people won’t.” They can die in their sleep.
While the cardiac catheter team prepared for the procedure, Bingi picked up his son, took him home and returned to the cath lab to do the thrombectomy – a procedure to remove a blood clot – using the Inari FlowTriever.
The cath procedure begins through a vein in the groin and goes to the right side of the heart, which leads to the lungs where the clot is sucked out.
Recuperation is remarkably quick, they both said.
“I remember coming to about 9, 9:30, and I felt fine,” Howell said.
He was sent to the ICU to recover, discharged on Friday, and returned to coaching youth basketball on Saturday – just a bit more subdued than usual. “And I’ve returned to pretty much full activity. I was able to get back to life in two to three days.”
Bingi said, “That was unheard of before.”
When he started his training in 2013, it took months to get back to normal, if at all. Now patients are typically back to normal in a week.
Bingi talked about the technological advance that enabled him to save Howell’s life. “We are very fascinated by this new procedure.”
Inari put the FlowTriever – the first device to be awarded an FDA indication for treatment of pulmonary embolism – on the market about three years ago, he said, and Mon Health started doing this procedure around two years ago.
Before that, a patient might require multiple procedures, or treatment involving administering strong “clot buster” drugs – thrombolytic medications – with the hope the body would absorb the clot over the next several months.
But the drugs also produce prolific bleeding – out the nose, in the stool and urine – and can lead to stroke from a brain bleed.
“With this procedure we’re completely off of that,” Bingi said.
The timing of the release of the FlowTriever was fortunate, Bingi said, because the COVID pandemic led to increased incidences of blood clots and people dying from pulmonary embolisms.
“Unfortunately, since COVID, we are doing a lot” of thrombectomies, Bingi said.
Howell points out that his PE wasn’t COVID related. He has a genetic condition and wasn’t taking his medication consistently. “I was basically rolling the dice for I don’t know how long.”
Now – as a single dad with two kids and nine employees at his company – he’s made some life changes and is taking his medication regularly.
The adoption of the FlowTriever procedure, Bingi said, is at the core of Mon Health’s mission.
“The innovations that are coming in and we are able to implement here at Mon Health – that just makes us one of the pioneers in cardiovascular health. We are bringing all the newest technologies into the communities so that they can get the best treatment that is available anywhere in the country.
“I can say we are second to none in the country in what we do in cardiovascular health,” he said. “We are the best and I’m really proud to be working here.”
And Howell is thankful he came to Mon Health. “There was this confident professionalism. I knew what was going on, I knew how serious it was.”
The ER nurse took his hand, he said, and told him, “’You’re in the right place. You’re exactly where you need to be.’ That just gave me a level of calm.”
And she told him about Bingi: “He is the exact person you need to see, with the exact tool, and the exact procedure you need.” Bingi and the crew also assured him. “It just amazed me so much how professional and confident the whole staff was.”
Commenting on the occasion of the 100th thrombectomy, Dr. Matthew Cindric, chief of Vascular Surgery, said, “Our experience with the Inari thrombectomy system has highlighted several advantages across the board. We are seeing an improved clearance of clots with quicker procedural times, a virtual elimination of clot busting medication, and the ability to perform a single procedure instead of multiple.”
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
