Скачать или смотреть Beating The Odds: Ricky Evans’ Emergency Heart Surgery At UNC Health Rex

In December of 2024, 68-year-old Ricky Evans got in his car to go to breakfast with friends and his vision became blurry. He went back inside, and his wife called Youngsville Rescue and EMS. She told them he had an aortic aneurysm, a bulging in the wall of the main heart artery, that he and his UNC Health cardiologist Dr. George Adams had been watching for the last several years. They figured it had burst, and Evans was rushed where he requested to be treated—UNC Rex Hospital.

The emergency department was prepared for his arrival, and he was immediately taken into surgery with cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Clifton Reade, with Rex Cardiac Surgical Specialists. While the procedure to repair the aorta took several hours, a critical part of it had to be done in under 30-minutes to prevent brain damage. Dr. Reade expertly completed that part in 21 minutes, and thanks to the care provided by anesthesiologist Dr. Tarek Radwan, Evans woke up the next day without any signs of brain damage. He had a jersey made for Dr. Reade with the number 21 on the back to celebrate the achievement.

Evans was told that he had one of the worst tears the team had ever repaired—and that he only had about a 5% chance of survival. He says he’s grateful to the Rex team for saving his life.

“Some things that stood out to me as a positive differentiator of the Rex team is that you can take employees and look at them as made of two parts—their skills and personal values,” Evans says. “You can teach someone to measure blood pressure, and you can teach someone to do a surgical procedure, but you can’t teach people to care. What I’ve seen here with the Rex team, they have that sense of caring. To all the Rex team: I love you all.”