7 Healthcast: Impella device

It's called the Impella Device and it is being hailed by some in the medical community as a life saving tool.

Dr. Faizal Khan, St. Elizabeth Hospital
"A patient comes in with a very severe heart attack and his his organs are beginning to fail, so he's not getting enough blood to his brain or to his kidneys, or to the liver for example and that puts him at at higher chance of of dying basically this device is able to support the left ventricle, take over some of its function."

The way it works is the tiny device, which has a balloon is inserted into the chest cavity, it then supports the ventricle, allowing oxygen to get to the brain and blood to get to the vital organs.

77 year old Patricia Zeoli of Weymouth has had several surgeries and is thankful for the device.

Patricia Zeoli, heart patient
"They needed to use the Impella was to fix the left main of the heart because they can't it would be too risky to go in there without having my blood flow was only 35 percent of my oxygen and everything".

Patricia credits the Impella for saving her from major surgery-

Patricia Zeoli, heart patient
I would have had to have open heart surgery or nothing it was one or the other, and if I had nothing, I wouldn't have lasted that long, probably.

And Dr. Khan hopes that this device can give more and more high risk heart patients a fighting chance.

Dr. Faizal Khan, St. Elizabeth Hospital
"I think that we can extend what we are doing to patients who are currently considered too high risk to have these procedures done".

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