A De Soto man is alive thanks to an innovative procedure that kept his blood pumping for two days with no lungs 鈥 his heart held in place by breast implants 鈥 until he was well enough to get a lung transplant.
Doctors at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago say they were left with little choice but to try something they had never done before when 34-year-old David 鈥淒avey鈥 Bauer was sent to the hospital as a last-ditch effort to save him.
鈥淪ometimes a crisis makes you innovate,鈥 said Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern. 鈥淗e was so young, it just made us think about something creative to help him.鈥
Bauer is scheduled to appear Wednesday at a Chicago news conference to answer questions about his ordeal, which began in April when he got sick with influenza after years of vaping that started with a cigarette addiction.
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He has been getting stronger after the past nearly month and a half in rehabilitation. His lung transplant was May 28, and he spent months in intensive care.
鈥淚鈥檓 so grateful to be alive and know I wouldn鈥檛 be here today without the support of my girlfriend, family, friends and my Northwestern Medicine transplant team who never gave up on me,鈥 Bauer said in a statement provided by the hospital.
Hospital officials said Bauer spent his time skateboarding, gaming and golfing when was not at work landscaping and was otherwise healthy. He started smoking cigarettes when he was 21 and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day before switching to vaping about four years later.
Lung transplants are typically done on patients with long-term disease such as emphysema or pulmonary fibrosis that slowly destroys lungs, but the rest of their body is otherwise healthy, Bharat explained.
Patients who become acutely ill from infections like influenza, where the lungs deteriorate rapidly and other problems in the body develop, are often too sick and weak to survive a lung transplant, thus wasting precious donor lungs in short supply.
But the COVID-19 pandemic began to stretch the boundaries of what was possible as doctors began to see more younger patients with lungs ravaged by the new virus who had to be kept alive by ECMO, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, an invasive device that pumps blood to an artificial lung outside the body and back in. Surgeons at Northwestern paved the way in performing successful lung transplants for these acutely ill patients, helping them get healthy enough for the surgery.
But Bauer鈥檚 case was unique because he developed a lung infection that was resistant to antibiotics and continued to decline while on ECMO at 狐狸视频 University Hospital in 狐狸视频. Bharat said a doctor there knew of Northwestern鈥檚 experience and reached out.
Bharat said his team believed they could treat Bauer much like they had COVID-19 patients, but he had become too sick. His lungs were so filled with pus that they had started to liquefy. Bacteria was spreading from the lungs into his bloodstream. At one point, Bauer鈥檚 heart stopped and he was brought back to life with CPR.
鈥淚t was very clear that in that state, he would not go through a double lung transplant,鈥 Bharat said. 鈥淲e had to come up with a strategy where we take both his lungs out and let his body clear the rest of the infection.鈥
The surgical team crafted channels that attached to his heart that would 鈥 while he had no lungs 鈥 drain the blood from the heart, divert it to an oxygenating machine and then return it to the heart, where it could be pumped to the rest of the body.
The strategy also does not require blood thinners, which would鈥檝e caused dangerous bleeding in a patient like Bauer, Bharat explained.
The process is unlike ECMO, which requires the lungs to be intact for the heart to pump, Bharat said.
鈥淏ecause the lungs are out, there is no connections between the right and left side鈥 of the heart, the surgeon explained. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we had to create these artificial channels.鈥
Another challenge was to replicate another important function of the lungs: holding the heart in place. Without the lungs, the heart would fall into the chest cavity, Bharat said. 鈥淚t would kink everything, and the patient would die right away.鈥
That鈥檚 where the breast implants came in, size DD to be exact.
鈥淲e had to use something that was compatible with the body ... and you know, breast implants are the biggest implant we have,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e a little bit malleable, so they can be molded into the chest cavity.鈥
Bharat and his team were anticipating needing to keep Bauer alive without lungs for a few weeks rather than a couple of days. They were surprised by how quickly his infection cleared. And luckily, donor lungs became available.
Bharat said that patients like Bauer would typically have not survived. Now, critically ill patients have more options.
鈥淲e have a potential solution where we stabilize them by taking their lungs out and using this strategy to keep them alive while the body gets better,鈥 he said. 鈥淎nd then when they get stable, you bring them in for a transplant.鈥
Bauer鈥檚 girlfriend and caretaker, Susan Gore, 30, also of De Soto, said while waiting for his infection to clear she would take a breath and say to herself, one breath for me and one for Davey.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to wrap my mind around it, and I鈥檓 still in awe that Davey was able to do this 鈥 it truly shows his strength,鈥 Gore stated in the news release.
Gore and Bauer will remain in Chicago for the next year so his transplant team can closely monitor him.
Bauer encouraged others to get a flu shot and not smoke cigarettes or vape, which contains chemicals that can injure the lungs.
鈥淰aping felt better, and I thought it was the healthier alternative, but in all honesty, I found it more addicting than cigarettes,鈥 he told hospital officials.
The Missouri Department of Health released data this week that showed for the first time, more high school students (19%) vaped than adults smoked cigarettes (17%) in Missouri.
Concerned that youths will become the next generation of adults addicted to nicotine, health officials are holding one-hour conversations about vaping for teens and adults across Missouri this month and next in Poplar Bluff, Bethany, Moberly and Salem. To learn more, go to .
鈥淚f I could go back in time, I never would have picked up a cigarette or vape pen,鈥 Bauer said, 鈥渁nd I hope my story can help encourage others to quit, because I wouldn鈥檛 wish this difficult journey on anyone.鈥