Richard Houchin (right) joins Jan Van Noord
along the route of the Los Angeles
Marathon, March 6, 2005
March 2005
At the beginning of 2004 in Los Angeles, Richard Houchin was an active 62 year old,
running 5 miles with his jogging partners and regularly working out at the gym.
When time allowed, he ran half marathons (13 miles).
February 4, 2004, began as an ordinary day for Richard. Around noon he and his wife,
Mary, had lunch in a restaurant with a contractor doing work on their rental
property, an industrial building. Mary left them at 1 pm, and the two men walked
back to the nearby property. As Richard stood talking with the contractor, he
suddenly collapsed. (The contractor's name is Brian Cleary. Click here to read Brian's story.)
An ordinary day was now a crisis: the call to 911, paramedics, the
emergency room of the local hospital, the message for Mary to rush to Richard's
side, testing, then a CT scan and a diagnosis.
No, it was not a heart attack. Richard's ascending aorta had dissected.
Written here in a few brief words are events that took place over several hours.
During that time, Richard's aorta was torn inside, holding together by its
thin outer layer.
At about 7:30 pm, Richard was transferred to Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in critical condition. Dr. Sharo Raissi performed emergency
surgery, replacing Richard's entire ascending aorta and repairing his bicuspid
aortic valve.
When paramedics first arrived on the scene, they noticed Richard could not move his
left side. During the dissection, Richard had suffered a stroke. Richard
not only had to recover from the surgery to repair his aorta, he also had to
overcome the affects of the stroke.
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