I felt a ripping sensation in my chest before doctors said I was hours from death and needed 12-hour open heart surgery
A MAN assumed he was suffering from an allergic reaction after feeling a strange ripping in his chest – little did he know he’d be undergoing open heart surgery days later to save his life.
Tom Brazier, then 27, was fit and healthy and had no reason to believe that his heart was malfunctioning and was close to death.
He ran and went to the gym regularly and had no known preexisting conditions that could explain the intense pain ripping sensation tearing through his chest in October 2023.
Tom would later find out that this was actually his aorta being ripped apart.
Tom, who works in medical sales, was at home in Wiltshire when his body’s largest artery tore.
He said: “I didn’t know it was. It was just a feeling I’ve never experienced. I knew something wasn’t right.
“I had this strange aura come over me and I didn’t feel good. Then, out of nowhere, I got this ripping sensation all up through my chest, into my jaw. It was really weird.”
He went next door to tell his parents and he called his doctor who suggested an antihistamine and paracetamol.
The pain migrated across his back and shoulder blades, but later he started to feel better, so he went to bed early and woke up the next day feeling fine.
That day he drove to a Hertfordshire hotel for work, but on his arrival, he started experiencing chest pains that left him unable to move.
Tom dialled 111 who sent him to the out-of-hours doctor.
He recalled: “I drove myself there and I had to drag myself from the car to the waiting room, I was in so much pain.
“Every step was agony. I slumped into the closest chair and waited.”
The doctor was unable to work out what was wrong and sent Tom to A&E, where he had blood tests and an ECG.
In hospital, he was told it was likely pericarditis, inflammation around the heart, and he was sent home with painkillers and antibiotics and told to rest.
Tom spent a week in bed, not doing much but feeling generally okay until his follow-up appointment with the doctor.
He said: “I hadn’t really noticed that I was bad because I hadn’t moved around too much.
“But Emma, my partner, noticed I could barely walk 10 metres without being out of breath. I told the doctors I felt fine, but Emma told them I wasn’t.
“She said: ‘He’s not okay. You need to figure out what’s actually wrong with him’, and pushed for a CT scan.”
The scan revealed the shocking truth: Tom had an eight-centimetre-long tear in his aorta and was potentially hours away from death.
He was suffering form an aortic dissection, a life-threatening condition where the weakened wall of the aorta tears, causing blood to leak between the walls of the arteries.
The condition affects 2,500 people a year in England.
Tom was sent for emergency open-heart surgery at the Royal Brompton – which took 12 hours – to replace his heart valve and repair this major artery.
He recalled: “I felt fine. I didn’t know what an aortic dissection was at the time.
“But I’ve since realised that Emma and the team at the Brompton Hospital saved my life.”
‘Scary and challenging’
Tom spent a month in hospital recovering, and needed further surgery later, but by December he was up and exercising carefully again.
He has a long scar from the base of his neck down to his ribcage, and is grateful to be alive.
“It was an incredibly complicated operation that is why heart research is so important,” he said.
“There aren’t loads of surgeons that could have operated on me, and Heart Research UK train surgeons and run clinics that save people’s lives.”
Aortic dissection is when the aorta wall becomes weak and tears, causing blood to leak between the layers that make up the walls of your arteries.
This can happen suddenly or slowly over time.
If you have an aortic aneurysm, you’re at higher risk of this happening.
The symptoms of aortic dissection include:
- A sudden, severe pain across the chest, often felt in the back or between the shoulder blades
- Pain in the jaw, face, abdomen, back or lower extremities
- Feeling cold, clammy and sweaty
- Fainting and shortness of breath
If you experience any of these symptoms you should phone 999 immediately as aortic dissection is a medical emergency and needs urgent treatment.
High blood pressure can weaken the aorta over time, making it more likely to tear.
Atherosclerosis – hardening of the arteries – and aortic coarctation, narrowing of the aorta at birth, are also risk factors for the condition.
Conditions that weaken the aorta wall, like an aneurysm, can make aortic dissection more likely too.
Some people are born with a condition that causes the aorta wall to weaken. These conditions are uncommon and include:
- Marfan syndrome
- Turner syndrome
- Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
- Loeys-Dietz syndrome
- Bicuspid aortic valve
Source: BHF
Out of gratitude, and with the permission of his consultant, Tom and his partner Emma will run the London Marathon next month to raise money for Heart Research UK and to show other people who have gone through life-saving surgery that they can recover and return to full fitness.
Tom added: “What happened to me was a massive thing, but I don’t want it to stop me from doing the things I want to do.
“I want other people to know that heart problems don’t have to define you. It is still possible to achieve things, run a marathon, or anything else you want to do.
“Yes, what I went through was scary and challenging, but things like this happen to people and it can happen out of the blue. But it shouldn’t let it stop you.”