Photo of Richard Kraft provided by Nicholas Kraft
In the ongoing coverage of the healthcare situation in Devils Lake, one medical case exemplified the need for a more updated facility in the city.
It was just any regular day in late August. Richard Kraft came home from work to let his puppy out. He didn’t feel quite right. His wife Bridget said Richard was with her mom and he told her to call an ambulance. Moments later he collapsed on the floor. At first look, it looked like a heart attack. When the ambulance came out his blood pressure was 50/40.
Richard was brought to CHI and had a CT scan performed. The scan showed an aneurysm on his aortic artery that had exploded. It is most commonly called an aortic dissection. John Ritter of “Three’s Company” fame died of aortic dissection while filming a TV show and had been diagnosed as a heart attack.
“An air ambulance couldn’t get here from Grand Forks,” Richard’s wife Bridget said. Time was of the essence so an ambulance from Devils Lake transported him to Grand Forks.
When Bridget was able to get to Grand Forks to see her husband, the surgeon explained the seriousness of the situation to her. “If he doesn’t have surgery, he has a 1% chance of living. With surgery, he has a 50/50 chance,” she recounted. Even complications such as stroke and dialysis are possible. “[We] couldn’t grasp how serious it was at the time until they said people normally don’t survive this,” said his 28-year-old son Nicholas.
The surgery required a mesh graft where the aneurysm was taken out. Richard was kept sedated for 3 days and was on a ventilator. He was released from the hospital on September 19 and is still recovering from this scary medical situation. “My dad is for the most part doing good. His recovery is a day-by-day basis and will have more appointments in the future,” Nicholas said. “Rich’s aorta was only half repaired. They are going to track the progress to see if it will heal on its own. That being said there is a chance that [he] might need to do more surgery to repair on it later in the future.”
With healthcare being a current topic in Devils Lake, Nicholas gave his thoughts on what he thinks needs improvement. “Having an emergency/non-emergency surgical team to do major surgeries. Since at the time we have to go to Grand Forks, Fargo, or other places that just have the experienced people because that time is critical [to] fix the problem so we need resources to help.”
It is hard to catch, aortic dissections can be hard to detect but there are still ways to potentially catch it. “Get heart and vascular testing every 3-5 years to see if you have this condition especially if there has been a history,” Nicholas said. “A lot of places can misdiagnose it as a heart attack.”
If you would like to donate to help the Kraft family with their medical expenses you can mail checks to:
PO Box 1193 Devil’s Lake ND 58301
Checks should be made out to Richard or Bridget Kraft.
