Marti Bowen

Marti Bowen didn’t expect to be hospitalized for nearly a month after she was involved in a four-wheeler accident in June 2020. But the caregivers at Medical City Heart Hospital and the Dallas Valve Institute quickly became her friends.

“We were at my friend deer lease and we weren't crazy four-wheeling or anything, but we were just driving and somehow it just flipped,” says Marti. “My friend was driving and I was riding and honestly, he doesn't even really know what happened. He just says somehow it flipped and the whole thing landed on top of me. At the beginning I remember hitting the ground, I remember flying out. And then I came in and out a bunch of times. The one time I woke up, I remember the four-wheeler was on top of me and the bar was on my back and my neck.”

The 21-year-old suffered a broken rib, a concussion and the mitral valve in her heart was torn, though that was not immediately known. She also had a dislocated elbow and a collapsed lung.

“I was on the ECMO machine for 11 days,” says Marti. “So I was in a coma. I didn't really understand the whole severity of everything until about a month afterwards.”

After hospital stays in Jacksboro and Wichita Falls, Marti was transferred to Medical City Heart Hospital, where an important discovery was made.

“When they brought me here, they didn't even know that there was anything wrong with my heart,” says Marti. “There just weren’t any other spots for me at any other hospitals because of COVID. So I ended up coming here, and that's when they realized that I had a torn mitral valve. My heart was the issue. That's why my lungs were filling with blood.”

A surgical team, led by Dallas Valve Institute Medical Director Bruce Bowers, MD, was able to repair Marti’s mitral valve. She has since made a full recovery.

“I was very impressed with all the doctors and the nurses and until she got off of the ECMO machine, there were two people in there with me 24 hours a day,” says Marti. “And I was just really impressed with the doctors and the nurses.

“I was sad that I wasn’t going to see the nurses and staff anymore because they had become good friends. Every time I come here, I say, ‘Dad, can we sneak into the ICU and see my nurses?’ because they were my friends every day for a month. They were great.”

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Call Medical City Heart Hospital at (972) 940-8000