SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 A new national report ranks Intermountain Primary Children\u2019s Hospital among the best in the country \u2014 and behind those numbers are families like the Kreitzers.<\/p>\n
For months, Margarite and Jason Kreitzer searched for answers. Their baby girl, Ruth, wasn\u2019t eating, gaining weight or playing like most infants.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was sick all the time,\u201d Margarite said.<\/p>\n
They tried everything, from different treatments to feeding tests. But Ruth kept getting weaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had several sleepless nights,\u201d Jason Kreitzer said.<\/p>\n
One evening, a specialist called after hours to check in and asked more questions about the seven-month-old\u2019s condition. She urged the family to go straight to the E.R. in St. George.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when they discovered her left lung was completely collapsed,\u201d Margarite said. \u201cShe had a 45-minute cardiac arrest, and she had a stroke during that time and some seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth was flown to Primary Children\u2019s in Salt Lake City via Life Flight. There, a team of specialists placed her on ECMO \u2014 a form of life support \u2014 while they worked to determine the cause. The next morning, doctors told Margarite that Ruth had a rare congenital heart defect called Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery, meaning the artery supplying blood to her heart was connected to the wrong vessel.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer heart was so weak, it was only like 15% working,\u201d Margarite said.<\/p>\n
She would need open-heart surgery to survive.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 1, 2019, surgeons at Primary Children\u2019s performed the complex procedure \u2014 an all-day operation. The surgery went well, but Ruth\u2019s heart remained fragile. She stayed on ECMO, dialysis and oxygen for weeks.<\/p>\n
Over the next two months, Ruth slowly began to recover. Her kidneys healed, her heart strengthened and nurses in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit began calling her their \u201cChristmas miracle.\u201d By January, she was strong enough to move to a regular floor.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 4, 2020, Ruth was discharged and sent home with a medication drip to strengthen her heart. When they returned that April to have the line removed, the COVID-19 lockdowns had just begun, so Ruth celebrated her first birthday in the hospital.<\/p>\n
Doctors told the family it would take about six months for her heart to recover \u2014 and they were right. Within that time, her heart function normalized, and the visits became less frequent. Because of her initial stroke and seizures, Ruth continues to receive therapies for speech, mobility and vision, along with neurology and rehabilitation support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat team up there is just top-notch,\u201d Jason said. \u201cWe\u2019re very grateful that we have Ruth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth\u2019s story unfolded in 2019, but hospital leaders say families like the Kreitzers \u2014 and the teamwork that saved her life \u2014 are the reason for the national recognition Primary Children\u2019s is receiving today.<\/p>\n