On the first night of Rosh Hashana 2004, a woman in her 25th week of pregnancy arrived at Shaare Zedek with a life-threatening tear in her aorta. Dr. Danny Fink, then a young cardio-thoracic surgeon, rushed in to perform the emergency surgery that saved her life.
Weeks later, her baby boy was delivered at 29 weeks and cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Both were later diagnosed with Marfan syndrome and carefully monitored over the years.
Twenty-one years later, almost to the day, that baby, now an IDF officer, returned to Shaare Zedek with the same dangerous condition. Once again, it was Dr. Fink, now Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery, who performed the life-saving operation.
Dr. Fink described the moment as “a deeply moving full-circle story,” honouring the courage of both mother and son.
The patient, A, shared that he “never let the condition stop him” and expressed gratitude for the swift diagnosis and expert care that saved his life, just as it had saved his mother’s.
Yael, his mother, added her heartfelt thanks to Dr. Fink and the Shaare Zedek teams for “21 years of caring and friendship that truly has saved our lives.”