October 14, 2023 – A German woman suffered an acute aortic dissection and a stroke on a plane in the Croatian airspace on her way to a vacation to Greece. The plane immediately landed in Zagreb, and thanks to the quick intervention of the expert team of KBC Zagreb, her life was saved. After more than three weeks, she went home to Germany.
65-year-old German woman named Heike will never forget the trip to Greece, writes Index. The emergency landing in Zagreb was a lifesaver for her.
“My aorta ruptured on the flight from Stuttgart. I was on the plane, I was vomiting, my husband was worried, and the doctors helped me. We landed urgently in Zagreb, where they operated on me. The doctors saved my life, otherwise, I would have been dead.” Heike Griesinger described her experience.
“It is a testament to the quality and recognition of the medical emergency inside the plane, for which I congratulate the people who were there, but also our ability to respond to such medical challenges that have a time imperative that is actually very serious,” explained Prof. Ph.D. Hrvoje Gašparović, MD/Head of the Clinic for Cardiac Surgery KBC Zagreb.
Movie Scenario: Emergency Landing for German Woman
It is a rare situation, similar to a movie script, which KBC Zagreb had never had before.
“Zagreb airport was actually the closest place where one could land and access the surgical treatment of a disease that has an expected mortality rate of one percent per hour, a very dramatic condition. It is a disease that requires urgent surgical treatment due to the risk of a ruptured aorta, bleeding, and sudden death,” said Gašparović,
“It is a dramatic and vicious disease where the largest blood vessel in our body is torn from the inside. The procedure lasted somewhere between seven and eight hours and went smoothly; we replaced her ascending aorta and part of the aortic arch,” explained Željko Đurić, MD/specialist surgeon, subspecialist in cardiac surgery at KBC Zagreb.
The Challenges
Postoperative care was challenging, but so was communication.
“We had a lot of problems there, but sometimes we are also lucky, as Lucija, our physiotherapist, speaks German, so she helped us where Mrs. Heike could not understand our English. Mrs. Heike is very patient, and we, I have to admit, tried as hard as we could to overcome it in the most favorable way for her, so that she would be satisfied, said Helena Enola Delić, head nurse of the Department for Intermediate Postoperative Cardiosurgical Treatment.
“There were challenges related to neurological rehabilitation and specific hematological disorders that can have serious complications, so here we were able to bring the patient to a state in which she can be successfully transported back to Germany,” said Ivica Šafradin, MD of the Department for intermediate postoperative cardiosurgical treatment.
That is what she wants the most after 24 days in the hospital.
“It’s very good here, but I don’t understand the language, and I want to be with my family,” said Heike.
