How burning away heart tissue saved a firefighter's career

William H. Heenan serves in an elite search-and-rescue squad for the Chicago Fire Department and absolutely loves his job.

But when he began suffering debilitating episodes of an irregular heartbeat called premature ventricular contractions, his career was in jeopardy. Heenan feared he would have to switch to less challenging duties.

Loyola University Medical Center cardiologist Jeffrey Winterfield, MD, was able to save Heenan's career by performing a procedure called a catheter ablation. The procedure destroyed a small area of heart tissue responsible for erratic electrical signals that caused Heenan's irregular heartbeat.

Heenan said that immediately after the procedure, he felt "100 percent better." And he has returned to his South Side search-and-rescue squad, the busiest in the city.

"It took me 20 years to get on the squad and I did not want to lose it," he said.

Winterfield said that being able to restore function to his patients is the best part of his job. "It gives me tremendous satisfaction," he said. "It's why we do what we do."

Heenan, 51, keeps himself in good shape by running and lifting weights almost every day. The first indication something was wrong with his heart occurred after he returned from fighting a fire for two hours on a cold December night. His heartbeat felt weird, but Heenan thought it was just exhaustion.

A few weeks later, though, he suffered a dizzy spell while emptying a dumpster. Paramedics put him on a heart monitor, determined his heartbeat was out of control and took him to a local hospital.

Heenan later came to Loyola in Maywood, Ill., where Winterfield diagnosed him with premature ventricular contractions (PVC). A PVC is an offbeat heartbeat that originates in the ventricles (lower pumping chambers) and disrupts the heart's normal rhythm. Symptoms include dizziness, lightheadedness, fainting, palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pain and life-threatening cardiac arrest.

"It felt like I had a cramp in my chest," Heenan said. "It got so bad I couldn't sleep at night."

PVCs usually are caused by disorders such as coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart) and damage to heart muscle caused by a heart attack. But in some cases, such as Heenan's, there is no known cause.

Medications can sometimes control PVCs, but they can have side effects and Heenan did not want to be on meds for the rest of his life. So he elected to have a catheter ablation. Winterfield guided a catheter (a thin flexible tube) through blood vessels and into Heenan's heart. The tip of the catheter delivered radiofrequency energy that heated and destroyed the tissue responsible for the erratic electrical signals.

Heenan said that as soon as he woke up from the procedure, "my whole body felt better."

Before the procedure, about 33 percent of Heenan's heartbeats were abnormal. Now, fewer than 1 percent of his heartbeats are abnormal.

Provided by Loyola University Health System