The Heart of Innovation: 30th Anniversary of First Cardiac Stent in South Dakota
One of the most exciting aspects of medicine is that it’s constantly changing and improving patient outcomes. That spirit of innovation has been a staple of the Avera Heart Hospital ever since opening its doors. There are countless stories of lives changed and saved but when you take a closer look at one Harrisburg man's story – more specifically his heart – you'll see how one small intervention also made South Dakota history.
“When I retired in 1994, I started restoring what you see here. So far, I've restored 11 tractors, 20 plows, a mower rake, a disc baler, two field cultivators, two potato diggers, four milk carts… I guess that's it! A lot of green paint.”
It's more than a hobby for Willis Hanna. Giving broken things new life has become a passion of his and you could say it also hits pretty close to the heart.
“I've got seven bypasses and four stents,” said Hanna.
Willis has a strong but tricky heart that required a little extra care to keep his engine running throughout the eighties and nineties.
“So in 1993, I started getting chest pain again. They couldn't get the blockage to stay open,” said Hanna.
That brought Willis to Dr. Raymond Allen's team, who began considering innovative options to treat his recurring condition.
“I actually do remember a little bit about that case because we had to do some hoop jumping to get through that,” said Dr. Allen, an interventional cardiologist with the North Central Heart Institute a division of the Avera Heart Hospital.
What Dr. Allen proposed was to open Willis's blockage by placing a cardiac stent. Up until then, stenting was used to open blockages in the blood vessels of the legs, but not inside the heart itself. In 1993, the FDA approved their use and Willis was about to make history.
“This was the first time that we were able to put a stent in and we put the first one in the state (South Dakota) in,” said Dr. Allen.
“As I was waiting and sitting, trying to find out something on how he was doing. All of a sudden I heard these two doctors coming down the hall saying, ‘It's in and it works, it's in and it works!’ It was just like two children coming down the hall of the hospital, and I knew I was taking him home again,” said Gail Hanna, Willis’ wife.
30 years ago, Willis Hanna became the first of many patients in South Dakota to receive a cardiac stent.
“To be part of that was way cool. It made a dramatic game changer. Patients did better, we weren't going back and doing emergency procedures. It's continued to expand and it's now the standard of care,” said Dr. Allen.
Like his tractor's, Willis has required some maintenance over the last three decades. At 87 years young, he credits walking every day as a big reason he's healthy enough to enjoy both his hobby and spending quality time with the love of his life.
“She's the best thing that ever happened to me. She keeps me alive and the North Central Heart doctors at the Avera Heart Hospital, they keep me alive,” said Hanna.
Willis says he makes it a priority to get more than two miles of walking in every day. Something he hasn’t missed since getting out of the hospital 30 years ago.
