Pregnant Mom Survives Heart Disorder

Jan. 19 -- It was late in her pregnancy when Lisa Dohleman started suffering severe chest pains, which she initially thought had something to do with the baby.

Instead, she was 33 weeks pregnant and suffering from acute aortic dissection, the same rare and sudden heart ailment that killed actor John Ritter, who was just 54 when he died in September. But unlike Ritter, the 26-year-old Indiana woman surmounted incredible odds of 20,000 to 1, surviving open heart surgery and an emergency Caesarean section to deliver her baby.

Dohleman had just gotten out of the shower on Dec. 16 when she felt a "pop" in her throat and then a burning pain. She knew that it was something serious, but wasn't sure what it was.

Dohleman and her husband, Thomas, rushed first to Indianapolis' Community Hospital East, then to Community Hospital North, where doctors diagnosed the problem.

"By a CAT scan, we were able to see her aorta had already started to dissect. The worry was it could rupture at any moment," said cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. David Evans on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

Two Emergency Procedures

Aortic dissection occurs when the wall of the aorta pulls apart, causing blood to flow through the wall itself. That flow weakened the wall, and caused a tear.

After the Dohlman's diagnosis, she was taken to nearby Indiana Heart Hospital, where doctors knew that they had two tough procedures on their hands. First, Dr. David Kiley performed an emergency C-section, delivering Alexis Rose Dohleman. The baby girl was seven weeks premature, but otherwise healthy.

Kiley worked quickly, estimating that it took five to 10 minutes to cut the baby from the mother's uterus. There was no time to close the abdomen before the open-heart surgery, performed by Evans, who led a team of 15 doctors and nurses through the 3½-hour procedure.

The fatality rate for aortic dissection is 80 percent to 90 percent, but Dohleman made it through.