He Almost Didn't Make It...
B. Craig Johnson (better known to country music
dancers as Central Florida's favorite nightclub DJ
"Dusty Miller") came terrifyingly close
to becoming a statistic during the afternoon of February
21, 2001 when an aneurysm on his aorta ruptured between
the valve and the arch of the aorta extensively damaging
his aortic heart valve. The result was an ascending
aortic dissection (a rupture or tearing of his aorta)
down into his body. This in turn caused two blood
clots to form and then tear loose, one lodging in
his right leg while the other lodged in his coronary
artery.
Local paramedics with EVAC Ambulance, recognizing
a cardiac problem, the blood clot, and the blockage
in his right leg, transported Dusty to Florida Hospital
(Deland, Florida) with all possible speed. There,
by performing an angioplasty, doctors were able to
partially break the blood clot in his right leg and
restore limited circulation to that leg, but could
do nothing for the more serious problem which was
the now leaking heart valve and the extensively damaged
aorta which was pumping blood into his chest cavity.
This same problem caused the death of actor John Ritter
in 2003.
Dusty was transferred just before midnight via a
trauma helicopter from Tampa General Hospital (Tampa,
Florida) to Shands' Hospital at the University Of
Florida in Gainesville but not before his pastor was
told to "stay with the family" as he was
not expected to survive the flight. Pastor John Regan,
who served in Vietnam shortly after Dusty did, gave
a "battlefield" prayer over his friend while
hanging partially out of the helicopter before the
air ambulance lifted off.
Upon arrival at Shand's Hospital shortly after midnight,
emergency surgery was performed repairing and replacing
the heart valve with the valve from a pig's heart,
and replacing and rebuilding the aorta with a piece
of man-made material called gel-weave. In addition,
a coronary by-pass was performed using a vein from
his left leg, and a fem-to-fem by-pass across his
groin from one leg to the other was done using a tube
made from a man-made material called Gore-Tex to restore blood flow to his right leg.
Medical personnel stress that the survival rate for
the problem Dusty suffered is less than 1% and that
most people will die within the first 15 to 30 seconds
after being hit with this problem. At one point during
the procedure, Dusty's body was being cooled to sub
normal temperatures to allow the surgery to proceed,
but his heart unexpectedly stopped. Not worried in
the least, Dr. Thomas Martin hooked his brain up to a heart-lung
machine and started the surgery. For 33 minutes, Gloria
was a widow.
Dusty was hospitalized again on October 9, 2003,
just two weeks before the annual Country Time line
dance cruise when he developed a staph infection of
the bloodstream, a condition which quite often is
fatal. Released from the hospital the night before
the cruise was to leave, he was prohibited from going
by his doctors, and was kept home with a nurse and
an intravenous anti-biotic for three months. In March
and April Dusty was hospitalized again for 12 to 15
days each when the infection became resistant to the
anti-biotics being used. He was airlifted back to
Shand's Hospital May 12, 2004. Dr. Martin, who performed
the operation in February of 2001 replaced Dusty's
entire thorasic aorta using a Dacron tube. After 2
weeks in the hospital and 8 weeks on home health care,
Dusty was once again "up and around" although
he is now considered 100% disabled.
In April of 2007, that staph infection in his blood stream reared its ugly head again causing some internal bleeding. Transported to Shands Hospital for the third time, Dusty was placed in a forced coma for nine days to allow the bleeding to subside and then spent another 13 days in the bed relaxing at the hospital.
