Dr. Barry Love "Heartfelt Care: Mount Sinai Doctors Save Life Of Brooklyn Girl With Congenital Heart Disorder By Implanting Defibrillator"
Ayana Rutledge, 8, received a defibrillator that can shock her heart back to normal if it goes into an abnormal rhythm.
"Get my baby to Mount Sinai!" a frantic Tenise Rutledge yelled into the phone last fall, when her daughter's Brooklyn school called to say she fainted tying her sneaker and was being rushed to Woodhull Hospital. Ayana Rutledge, 8, had a heart rhythm disorder diagnosed at birth by Mount Sinai cardiologist Dr. Barry Love, and her mom wasn't taking chances with another hospital. When Dr. Love, who is director of pediatric electrophysiology, implanted a pacemaker into a newborn Ayana in 2004, he programmed it to record her heart activity if it ever went faster than 240 beats per minute. A readout from the device told him that at 8:31 a.m. on September 27, her heart clocked an average rate of 273 beats. At one point, the organ hit 349 beats. "With that fast a rate, the heart is no longer pumping but quivering," Dr. Love said. "It's a scary and humbling moment as a physician because you must make the right decision quickly or you can lose the patient." Learn More
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