Chip Richie
Not being a candidate for newer technologies, Chip needed a heart. Following his transplant, he feels like he's on the receiving end of a miracle.
Twenty-five years ago, film producer Chip Richie recovered from a case of pneumonia. Shortly thereafter he became short of breath just walking up the stairs to his office.
Physicians controlled the condition with different medications and minimally invasive procedures.
“I went along fine for 10 years, says Chip. “I worked out on a regular basis. I walked. I started having Afib on a more regular basis, which was physically disconcerting.”
As the years passed his condition worsened, but he wasn’t a candidate for the newest supportive technologies.
Chip was placed on the donor heart list in April 2021 and was under the care of Brian Lima, MD, heart surgeon at Medical City Heart Hospital.
“There’s a lot of different instruments and tools, and pumps that we’ve developed to be able to support folks,” says Dr. Lima. “He really wasn’t a candidate for any of those things. So we really needed a heart.”
Within weeks, Chip received a new heart and began to feel the presence of something different inside him. He felt like the new kid in town. But waiting for a new heart was difficult.
“I was walking the halls, and I see my two doctors, outside my door,” Chip said. “When I walked in they said, ‘We found you a heart and we are gonna get it tonight for you.’ That was a moment that you just go, ‘Wow!’”
After transplant surgery and rehabilitation, Chip was on to the next challenge with a new perspective.
“As a heart transplant surgeon, the most defining moment, the moment that everyone holds their breath is when you finally finished sewing the heart in, and you release the clamp, you re-introduce blood back into the heart and you kind of wait and see how it’s going to take off out of the gates,” says Dr. Lima.
“The heart just took right off vigorously.”
Now Chip can happily rewrite the ending to his story, thanks to the transplant team at Medical City Heart Hospital and rehabilitation staff at Medical City Dallas.
“When you’re on the receiving end of that miracle, it impacts you,” he says. “I just want to be worthy of this extension of life.”