'Miracle Workers' Change Lives

March 13, 2006 — -- Drs. Redmond Burke and Billy Cohn were friends and colleagues before they signed on to do ABC's new show "Miracle Workers," a descendant of the tearjerker reality series "Extreme Home Makeover."

The doctors use their expertise combined with the latest technology to help people with debilitating medical conditions.

On the series premiere, the Miracle Workers used stem cells from a living donor and a cadaver to restore a blind man's sight. They also operated on a woman's back, helping her to walk again. In the second episode, which airs tonight, they will treat Adrian Keller, a 4-year-old boy with extreme scoliosis, and Emily Bresler, a 19-year-old girl with severe Tourette's syndrome.

There were amazing results for Adrian, whose spine was so curved from his condition that it made it difficult for him to live like a normal little boy. After a new kind of surgery, Adrian grew four inches.

"His father said that Adrian went into surgery looking like a question mark and came out as an exclamation point," Burke said.

Burke, chief of pediatric cardiovascular surgery at The Congenital Heart Institute at Miami Children's Hospital and Arnold Palmer Hospital in Florida, said that the surgery had straightened Adrian's curved spine and restored proper alignment, but more importantly, prevented his left lung from getting crushed by his body.

"One of the results of the deformity was to cramp his entire left side to the point where five of Adrian's ribs had become fused together and were exerting pressure on his lung," Burke said. "Without treatment, the deformity would have gotten worse and ultimately destroyed the lung, killing Adrian."

Burke said the surgery had been done with high-tech expanding rods that had been recently approved by the FDA. It is very risky to operate on the spinal cord and, at one point during the surgery, the doctor feared the boy was paralyzed. The only way to make sure he could still move was to wake him up and ask him to move his toes, even though the incision was still open and he was experiencing terrible pain.