ECMO: Vincent Delima
Vincent Delima shares his experience with HCA Florida Ocala Hospital as an ECMO patient, while Dr. Bryan Bush and Dr. Melvin Seek discuss how ECMO works and saved Vincent's life.
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, treatment saved Vincent Delima from a near-fatal heart failure.
Vincent was driving to work one day in southern Marion County when an intense stomach pain forced him to pull over. That pain became unbearable and caused vomiting. His wife rushed to him and took him to HCA Florida Summerfield Emergency, a part of HCA Florida Ocala Hospital, for what they thought was acid reflux.
A CT scan revealed that Vincent’s aortic valve had collapsed. An ambulance sped him to emergency surgery at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital. Vincent’s condition was dire following surgery.
Dr. Melvin Seek and Dr. Bryan Bush of HCA Florida Ocala Hospital determined that Vincent required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, treatment.
HCA Florida Ocala Hospital is one of the few hospitals in Florida with ECMO, a type of life support that functions as heart and lungs for certain critically ill patients. ECMO continuously pumps blood out of your body and then sends it through devices that add oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. The system then pumps the blood back into the patient’s body.
Vincent made a full recovery after spending a month on ECMO and 10 subsequent days in physical rehabilitation at HCA Florida West Marion Hospital. “As I came out of that coma, I was speaking with a couple of doctors, and they were telling me, ‘You’re a walking miracle. At one point we thought we were going to lose you,” Vincent recalls.
His wife, Keshia, says his family is amazed by his recovery. “He was on a death bed. He went to rehab. He was rehabilitated. He went back to work. And he’s home with us, doing his normal routine right now,” she adds. “And he’s a walking miracle. He really is.”