PIKE COUNTY, Ind. — A Southern Indiana teen is alive today thanks to a chance encounter with a retired doctor and a test not often performed on student athletes.
Dominick Smith's a junior at Pike Central High School, in Petersburg, who spent his first week of summer break at the hospital. While unexpected, it was by far, the best outcome given what the doctors found on the last day of school.
"Basically it was, if we don't do surgery, you will die," Smith said.
It was quite the surprise for a boy who felt completely fine when he heard those words. He was in his first year on the school's wrestling team.
"It was actually the last day of school and I wanted to skip, but a retired doctor, Doc Campbell, who helps our team, was doing free physicals, and Mom wanted me to get that," Smith said.
Little did she know, she just saved his life.
Dr. Campbell not only performed the typical physical for each athlete, but he also included an echocardiogram, which gave him a closer look at their heart function. Dominick said his took a bit longer than the rest of his teammates, and that's when the doctor said he needed a second set of eyes. He called in the wrestling coach, and then set Dominick up with a hospital in Jasper the next day. It was there, a Cat scan confirmed what he saw.
"He basically said, 'your aorta, it's very enlarged'," Smith said.
"Of course I googled 'enlarged aorta' and looked at the symptoms and he didn't have any," Shawna Carter, Dominick's mom said. "I never would've thought it was that bad."
Dominick had a massive aortic aneurysm. The main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body was triple the size it should be and had already begun to tear. One blow to the chest could've ended his life in an instant.
"It's like a balloon, you keep blowing it up, eventually, it's going to rupture," Dr. Bahaaldin Alsoufi, a cardiovascular surgeon for Norton Children's Heart Institute said. "His aorta was 9 cm. and the normal aorta for a kid that age should be around 3 cm."
There was no time to waste. Dominick was flown to Norton Children's Hospital for open heart surgery that night. The five-hour surgery was a success.
"This is as good as it gets," Dr. Alsoufi said.
What makes his story so unique, is this isn't something you see often in 16-year-olds and there was no family history or known genetics.
"He is completely asymptomatic. No chest pain. No history of any trauma to the chest," Dr. Alsoufi said.
Had Dominick skipped school and not had that test last week, Dr. Alsoufi says there's a good chance he wouldn't be here today.
"I told him you've got some guardian angel," he said.
For Dominick, wrestling's out of the picture now.
"I can live a normal life for the most part, but all the combat sports and mixed martial arts, and wrestling, I'll never be able to do any of that again," he said.
But he knows its a small price to pay and for that, he is grateful.
"Somehow, just everything aligned," he said.
Dominick's mom stresses the importance of sports physicals and says while echocardiograms aren't a usual exam in the process, parents should ask if they're available. It could save your child's life.
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