Heart Attack Doesn’t Stop This Father From Hearing Daughter Say, “I Do”

The bride wore white. The father of the bride wore a blue floral hospital gown and electrodes.

Mark A. Smith was at the rehearsal dinner for his daughter Tara’s wedding when he felt the familiar chest twinges that had bothered him for weeks. Only this time, they lasted longer and were accompanied by sweating…and it was January.

Later that night, the pain became harder to ignore. His wife, Cindy, a nurse, rushed him to Saint Luke’s East Hospital in Lee’s Summit, Mo. Within a few minutes of his midnight arrival, a cardiologist confirmed a heart attack and determined Mark would need bypass surgery. An ambulance took him to Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City near the Plaza, where he arrived by 1:30 a.m.

“What I encountered at Saint Luke’s was top-notch people and proficiency—extreme proficiency,” recalled Mark. “The whole time I had the comfort of knowing I was in the right place with the right people.”

Patients who suffer heart attacks have a 98 percent better chance of surviving at Saint Luke’s than at other hospitals. That’s because Saint Luke’s ranks among the nation’s best for heart attack survival rates, according to current Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Compare statistics. In fact, all four metro Saint Luke’s locations beat the national average.

By the next morning, Mark was feeling much better, until his wife told him Tara planned to call off the wedding set to take place the following day at Longview Mansion.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mark said. “This is all about the bride and groom. It’s not about Dad.” He reminded his wife and daughter about all the family and friends who had already flown into town and added a threat, “As long as I am breathing, I will fight to keep you from cancelling.”

He was tickled when the bride and groom, Glenn Giron, agreed to go ahead. “Enjoy your day,” he told them.

Secretly, though, Mark was kicking himself, imagining that if he’d gone to the doctor when the symptoms started, he would have treatment behind him and could have been at the ceremony.

Bedside betrothel

The Smiths had mentioned the wedding in the Emergency Department. When Karen Evans, the nurse manager on duty, heard, she set out to make sure Mark didn’t miss the wedding.

Evans worked with Saint Luke’s IT experts to set up a Skype connection with a laptop in Smith’s hospital room and one at the wedding. Family and friends carried it around so Mark got to see it all: the ceremony, the dinner, and the dancing. Wedding guests would stop by the laptop to say hello to Mark still in his hospital bed.

“I probably did more circulating this way than had I actually been at the event,” he said. “Plus, I didn’t have to wear a tie.” His sister sat with him during the ceremony and the wedding cake maker sent a smaller version to his hospital room. His cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, Tracy Stevens, MD, monitored his vital signs.

“Witnessing the wedding was as important as the surgery was for Mr. Smith,” Dr. Stevens said.

A few days later, Mark underwent triple bypass surgery to avoid the blockage that caused his heart attack and went home four days later. Now he’s taking medications to lower his cholesterol level and blood pressure and exercising regularly through Saint Luke’s outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program.

“I haven’t felt this good in years,” Mark said. “I didn’t realize how bad I felt. You don’t realize it until you feel better.” He has more energy, more stamina, and his memory has improved.

One memory he won’t soon forget was the moment during the wedding festivities when the room started spinning.

No, Mark wasn’t dizzy. His daughter had swooped up the laptop and was twirling it around the room, dancing with her dad.