ST PAUL, Minn. — By most accounts, the vast majority of Gavin Nieters' first 18 years of life would be considered normal.
It's just happened to be sandwiched in between a series of miracles.
"From the very beginning, somebody was watching out for us," said Gail Nieters. "We always say he's our miracle kid."
Gavin was born with a heart defect called pulmonary atresia, meaning the valve that would allow blood to flow from his heart to his lungs didn’t form, but thanks to two open heart surgeries by his first birthday, it didn't slow him down for the next 17 years.
"I just kind of lived a normal life," Gavin said. "Everything was fine."
That began to change just weeks before his high school graduation and 18th birthday. Gavin slowly began to realize something was off.
"I just felt no energy," Gavin said. "It was hard for me to get up the stairs even, and that's when I knew something was wrong. I know my mom worries a lot so I didn't want to tell her, but then she ended up finding out."
"He was talking on the phone one day and it sounded like he was short of breath," Gail said. "I told him that we needed to call the doctor.
On the advice of his pediatrician, the family took Gavin to the emergency room, and after a few tests, he was transported by ambulance to M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Hospital.
Just hours after of arriving at the hospital, he went into cardiac arrest.
"I just remember I screamed and somebody grabbed me and got me out of the room," Gail said. "I looked back and I just saw somebody doing compressions on him non-stop, and I thought — the way he looked when I left — I'd lost him."
But her miracle kid wasn't going anywhere.
"For Gavin, everything came together," said Dr. Pranava Sinha, Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery for the University of Minnesota Medical School and Co-director of the Heart Center at the M Health Fairview Masonic Children's Hospital.
Dr. Sinha says because Gavin was already in the hospital when he went into cardiac arrest, the surgery team was able to quickly connect him to an ECMO life support system that did the work for his heart and lungs.
But that still wasn't enough. The team also inserted a tiny Impella pump, which they had just concluded training for.
"It's a mechanical blood pump, so when you place that in the body, it essentially does the job of the heart," Dr. Sinha said. "It's not done very often with children, and it was the first time — in this program — that we did it in a kid."
"One nurse told me, 'Gail, we just learned about Impella, they just taught us about it, and we didn't think we'd ever have a patient we'd be using it on this fast," Gail Nieters said. "It's just another miracle in a series of miracles. Him making it through 40 minutes of CPR? Miracle. Them knowing about the Impella and being able to use it on him? Miracle, is what I considered it."
The pumps themselves are considered a temporary solution, designed to buy a patient time for a transplant, but for Gavin that just set the table for the last miracle.
Gail Nieters: "Within 24 hours they came in and said, 'We have a heart for him already, and it's a perfect match, like it doesn't get any more perfect.'"
Dr. Pranava Sinha: "On an average, the waiting time... can be long. It's usually measured in weeks and months. It was indeed a very fortunate sequence of events for Gavin, given the situation."
Kent Erdahl: "(Gail) calls it a series of miracles."
Dr. Sinha: "Yeah, I don't think that's incorrect."
Whatever you call it, Gavin says he's thankful for all the people who made it possible.
"I'm just so grateful for them," he said, acknowledging his medical team, the community support he received and the donor and their family.
"I'm so grateful for that donor," he said. "We do want to end up meeting (the family). It would be cool to see them, and thank them."
In the meantime, he's just hoping for a return to normal.
Gavin: "I hope to just keep living life and make sure I'm healthy and stuff. I plan to get a job after my recovery."
Erdahl: "Are you all good without any more miracles for a little while?"
Gail: "Yes. Please, we want to keep this heart happy, and just pray that every day he just gets stronger and stronger and just go from there."
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