NY Doctor Calls Woman's Recovery 'A Miracle'

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- It was a life-threatening affliction that usually happens to older men -- not women. However, thanks to some quick thinking on her part, and a crucial diagnosis by doctors, a mother of two is alive to tell her story.

Rhonda Mullen began to fade away at the bank. As her legs started to tingle, she called her husband Glenn while slurring her words.

"I couldn't catch my breath," Mullen told CBS 2's Sean Hennessey, "It was pretty scary, not knowing what was happening."

Somehow, she got herself into the car and to the hospital but when she arrived, her legs and left arm were numb.

"The blood flow stopped to all my lower extremities, everything was shutting down," Mullen said.

Doctors quickly determined the main artery in Mullen's heart, the aorta, had split in two, filling her chest cavity with blood and cutting off the flow to both of her legs.

"I immediately came from being concerned about saving her legs to really being concerned about saving her life," Dr. Ross Milner of Loyola University Medical Center said.

Milner knew an operation was the only option and explained the risks to the couple - including the danger that Mullen could be unable to walk again or even come out of the operation.

During surgery, Milner bypassed the torn aorta with a 2 1/2 foot goretex tube and believed it would be a while before Mullen woke up, but the next morning she did.

"She was looking at me...I was stunned," Mullen's husband said.

"It was just unbelievable to me how quickly she was starting to get better," Dr. Milner said.

Dr. Allan Stewart, director of aortic surgery at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, called the outcome "a miracle."

Stewart said the tube connected two healthy sections of the heart to re-establish blood flow.

"In essence it's driving down a highway and seeing an accident and bypassing or going around the scene of that accident," Stewart said.

More than half of the people stricken with the condition never make it to the hospital and of those lucky enough to get there, one in five never make it home, Hennessey reported.

"In the event that they do survive, about 30 percent to 40 percent of those people will be paralyzed," Stewart said.

But the Chicago area mother of two wasn't one of them. Months of therapy have Mullen walking with a slight limp, and this weekend she will be celebrating her tenth wedding anniversary with her husband.