Case 01 — 2001 · Kolkata → Mumbai
A New Lease of Life
Post-Infarction Ventricular Septal Rupture
5% survival rate
Bimalkumar Surana, 45, had come from Kolkata to Mumbai on a business trip when severe chest pain struck. By the time he reached S.R. Mehta & Kikabhai Cardiac Institute he was gasping, his pulse racing, his limbs icy cold. Emergency angiography revealed the rarest and deadliest complication of a heart attack: the wall between his ventricles had torn apart — post-infarction ventricular septal rupture. Most patients die undiagnosed; a quarter die within the first day.
Doctors waited twelve agonising hours for his family to arrive from Kolkata. With their consent, Dr. Parikh operated at midnight: an eight-hour emergency surgery, three bypass grafts, the torn septum repaired, the patient stabilised on an intra-aortic balloon pump.
The Afternoon Despatch & Courier told the story across its health pages that December under the headline 'A New Lease of Life'.
Back to his business — and, in his words, 'God's chosen one.'
