Press Releases

One Year Later Wantagh Nurse Is Back To Life-As-Usual

(September 20, 2010 - Rockville Centre, NY) A year after her remarkable recovery from two weeks in a medically-induced coma, a 45-year-old Wantagh nurse this month returned to Mercy Medical Center to say "thank you" to the doctors, nurses, therapists, technicians and other staff whose extraordinary efforts made it possible.

Last September, a rare surgical complication severely reduced blood flow to Nancy Leib's small bowel, creating a grim situation.

"Complete removal of the small intestine is incompatible with normal life," explained Dr. Gregory Zito, Mercy's Director of Surgery, "And we found that although we were able to restore a sufficient blood supply to avoid that, the organ would not recover from a buildup of abdominal pressure that would follow the closing of the incision."

The solution was a combination of advanced medical procedures more often associated with major academic medical centers than with a community hospital like Mercy. Ms. Leib was placed in a medically-induced coma so that rather than close her abdominal incision, Dr. Zito could cover it with a removable "patch" made of a high-tech tissue-replacement material. That enabled him to return his patient to the operating room each day and re-open the incision to relieve the abdominal pressure and maintain the bowel.

After eleven such procedures, the bowel sufficiently healed to allow Dr. Zito to permanently close the incision and begin to gradually awaken his patient, which would take another three days. After 14 days of unconsciousness, followed by a week in Intensive Care and a few more days of acute hospital care, then more than a week in Mercy's inpatient rehabilitation unit, Ms. Leib returned home.

She subsequently resumed her normal activities, and is back at work a cardiologist's office in Roslyn.

"It's really quite remarkable," said Dr. Zito. "Despite two weeks in a coma, there are no signs a year later that she experienced any physical or cognitive deficits."