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Winter 2015-2016
SHINE
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TosayJohnFinagets
a kick out of life
is far
fromcliché for this 70-year-old
lifelong soccer player.
As John will tell you, his love
of soccer comes third in his life,
behind his faith and his wife of
42 years, Mary.
After retiring from teaching
and coaching soccer, John needed
something to keep himself busy,
so he organized a senior soccer
league. Many in the league are
friends and former teammates he’s
known for decades.
“I don’t think there are any
words that explain the feeling that
I have with these guys,” John says.
“It’s like family.”
So last year on July 29, when John
collapsed on the soccer field during
a match with his buddies, it was no
surprise that they came to his rescue.
“At first I thought he had twisted
his knee, but when I saw him down,
I recognized he was in cardiac arrest,”
says teammate Carlos Navarro, DDS.
Dr. Navarro and another player
immediately began CPR, but by the
time paramedics took over, John had
been down 22 minutes.
A heart under attack
The paramedics took John straight
to the emergency department (ED)
at Methodist Richardson Medical
Center. Interventional cardiologist
Nhan Nguyen, MD, on the hospital’s
medical staff, says when John arrived
he was too unstable for any diagnostic
treatment, so he was put into
an induced coma.
“They reduced the temperature
of his brain to about 92 degrees
to prevent neurological damage,”
Dr. Nguyen says.
Tests showed complete blockage
in one of the major arteries on the
right side of John’s heart. It was
too calcified for Dr. Nguyen to
place a stent in the artery to restore
blood flow, so he determined that a
technique known as the retrograde
approach was the next best option.
Fortunately for John, he landed
in the right ED, where the right
interventional cardiologist was
trained in this highly specialized
procedure. The second attempt
was a success, and blood flow was
restored — but John wasn’t out of
the woods yet.
An ounce of prevention
John also has an anatomic
anomaly on the left side of his
heart. Cardiac electrophysiologist
Sumeet Chhabra, MD, also on the
Methodist Richardson medical staff,
says a significant part of the artery,
known as the widow maker, does
not sit on top of John’s heart as it
should. His is partially buried in
the heart muscle.
“He had a lack of blood flow
on the left side as well as that
abnormality, which created the
John Fina knew his
teammates were like family
even before they saved
his life. After treatment at
Methodist Richardson, John
is back where he belongs: on
the soccer field.
— Continued on next page