{"id":106783,"date":"2025-12-31T22:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/106783\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T22:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:57:09","slug":"fort-worth-doctor-saves-the-life-of-baby-with-rare-heart-defect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/106783\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth doctor saves the life of baby with rare heart defect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FORT WORTH, Texas – A North Texas hospital is being credited with saving the life of a newborn baby from Georgia.<\/p>\n

After being turned away from numerous other hospitals, the Beavers family found a doctor in Fort Worth who agreed to help treat their daughter\u2019s rare condition.<\/p>\n

Rare Heart Defect \"\" <\/p>\n

Sarah Ellen and Zach Beavers live in Athens, Georgia. That\u2019s where they received baby Anna Claire\u2019s frightening diagnosis before she was even born.<\/p>\n

“Her left ventricle was never formed or was just every small. And because it was so small that led it to never develop,” Zach Beavers said.<\/p>\n

Aside from Anna Claire\u2019s rare heart defect, she was also diagnosed with a genetic disorder known as Turner Syndrome.<\/p>\n

“When we first found out, I don\u2019t think we knew the severity of it and the rarity of it,” Zach Beavers said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple soon discovered there were no specialists in Georgia with the skills to handle what Anna Claire needed.<\/p>\n

“None of them knew what the combined two conditions created, what kind of complexity that created,” the new father said.<\/p>\n

Life-Saving Surgery \"\" <\/p>\n

The family began searching for a doctor outside of Georgia who might be able to help. That\u2019s when they found Dr. Vincent Tam at Cook Children\u2019s Medical Center in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

“In the last 20 years, we\u2019ve done a lot of the Norwood surgeries with very good results and some of the kids have had Turner Syndrome,” said Dr. Tam, a pediatric congenital heart surgeon.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

A week later, the hopeful family traveled to Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

Anna Claire was born on April 3. She underwent open-heart surgery that lasted more than five hours when she was just a day old.<\/p>\n

Thriving Baby Girl <\/p>\n

Today, Anna Claire is just shy of 9 months old and is a thriving bundle of joy.<\/p>\n

Her family is back in Athens, but occasionally returns to Fort Worth for follow-up visits with Dr. Tam.<\/p>\n

“It feels great. I mean, as a doctor, this is what we want to do. We work every day to make kids better,” the doctor said.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s all just an answer to prayer and we truly believe she is a living and breathing miracle. So, we have really experienced that and are grateful for every bit of it,” Sarah Ellen Beavers said.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“As hard as this year has been, we\u2019re really grateful to end the year the way we\u2019re ending it with such a smiley, joyful baby girl,” Zach Beavers added.<\/p>\n

Doctors tell them that Anna Claire will need another surgery when she\u2019s somewhere between 3 and 5 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From that point, the hope is that new developments with treatment will give her the best chances for a long life.<\/p>\n

The Source: FOX 4’s Dionne Anglin gathered information for this story from Cook Children\u2019s Medical Center, as well as interviews with the Beavers family and Dr. Vincent Tam.<\/p>\n

Health<\/a>Fort Worth<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas – A North Texas hospital is being credited with saving the life of a newborn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,584,223,122,216,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-106783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","10":"tag-fort-worth-news","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-tarrant-county","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}