Fla. Baby Gets World Smallest Pacemaker
Child Will Always Need Pacemaker
POSTED: Tuesday, April 13, 2004
UPDATED: 6:46 am EDT April 14,
2004
Doctors in Tampa, Fla., are giving a newborn baby with holes in his heart a chance at a normal life after installing the world's smallest pacemaker, according to a Local 6 News report.
Kerrick Walker was born with numerous birth defects, including a very slow heart rate, holes in his heart, and a heart positioned on the wrong side of the chest cavity.In an effort to save him, a team of pediatric heart surgeons and specialists at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital placed a pacemaker the size of a quarter inside Kerrick within minutes of his birth.The tiny pacemaker raised Kerrick's heartbeat from only 40 beats per minute to a normal infant's heart rate."We are blessed and we feel blessed that he's able to live and be here, the technology, the surgeons, we've come a long way, a long way," Kerrick's mother Rica Walker said.The baby remains on a ventilator and must undergo several more surgeries to repair his heart.The child will always need a pacemaker but should have a normal, active life, according to the report.
| Video |
Fla. Baby Gets World's Smallest PacemakerKerrick Walker was born with numerous birth defects, including a very slow heart rate, holes in his heart, and a heart positioned on the wrong side of the chest cavity.In an effort to save him, a team of pediatric heart surgeons and specialists at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital placed a pacemaker the size of a quarter inside Kerrick within minutes of his birth.The tiny pacemaker raised Kerrick's heartbeat from only 40 beats per minute to a normal infant's heart rate."We are blessed and we feel blessed that he's able to live and be here, the technology, the surgeons, we've come a long way, a long way," Kerrick's mother Rica Walker said.The baby remains on a ventilator and must undergo several more surgeries to repair his heart.The child will always need a pacemaker but should have a normal, active life, according to the report. Copyright 2005 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com.
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