Heart attack in progress at new hospital

Dr. Scott Seidner

The Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center continues to rack up firsts, this time the first emergency stenting for an acute myocardial infarction, or heart attack.

Dr. Scott Seidner of Cardiology Associates of Fredericksburg was seeing patients at Mary Washington Hospital yesterday morning when he received a call from an ER doctor at Spotsylvania Regional. A man in his 30s had walked into the emergency room there with persistent chest pain that got much worse yesterday.

“They called me with the EKG, and we said, ‘He’s got the real thing,’ ” Seidner said.

Cath lab workers at the new hospital had done non-emergency procedures but this was their first emergency, Seidner said. The team included Michelle Dunn, Patricia Wagner, Chris Sullivan, Shannon Jones, Ted Duford and Wendy Campbell.

During the procedure, Seidner passed a wire through the man’s blocked coronary artery to re-establish blood flow, used a balloon to open the artery, and placed a stent or small piece of metal scaffolding there to keep it open.  Seidner estimated the man’s “door-to-balloon” time at 90 minutes.

Seidner has been practicing in the Fredericksburg area since 2003. He and other cardiologists in the region have done many similar emergency heart procedures at the cath lab at Mary Washington.

“We wanted to establish that the same level of care that we’ve been providing at Mary Washington we do over here as well,” he said.

(Earlier postings about the opening of Spotsylvania Regional, the first baby delivered there and the  first pediatric patient can be found here, here and here.)

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