Family: Boy who received artificial heart dies
A 9-year-old El Paso boy who received an artificial heart last month has died, his family said.
Matthew “Gordo” Olivas Jr. was one of 30 children in the world to receive a mechanical heart fit for an adult. The operation took place at a Dallas hospital.
Olivas was born with a congenital heart defect called Ebstein’s Anomaly. A valve in his heart allows blood to pool in his right atrium, rather than pumping it to his lungs and the rest of his body. Patients with the defect can have hearts twice the normal size, Olivas’ cardiologist in El Paso said.
“To even think that I could have lost my son was crazy,” Matthew’s father Matt Olivas said while his son recovered. “I felt like nothing. I felt like the world had just ended.”
The enlarged heart made breathing difficult — and a lack of blood flow to the lungs didn’t help, either.
“Patients with Epstein’s Anomaly can have trouble with exercise capacity,” said cardiologist Dr. Jeffrey Schuster, who sees one or two cases a year in El Paso.
Dr. Schuster recommended a routine valve replacement in Dallas on Oct. 17. But when doctors opened Gordo up, they realized he needed a full-scale transplant.
