{"id":93346,"date":"2026-08-31T17:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T23:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=93346"},"modified":"2026-08-31T17:22:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T23:22:00","slug":"heart-transplant-after-cardiac-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/heart-transplant-after-cardiac-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Nuggets games can be heart-stopping, but not literally. This one was."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Kate
Kate met Ted D’Arcy 36 years ago at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where she was a senior and he was in law school. He asked her to dinner at his place. She was dazzled when he presented game hens and wild rice. They\u2019ve been together since then and have been married for 29 years. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even the most die-hard fans will admit that a Denver Nuggets game is not a life-or-death affair.<\/p>\n

For Ted D\u2019Arcy, however, the game on Feb. 27 was.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy, then 61, and his wife Kate had stayed up late to watch an overtime thriller in Oklahoma City where the Nuggets came up short against the defending NBA champions. D\u2019Arcy decided to watch the postgame press conference on Altitude Sports Network. Kate kept him company despite encouraging him to head upstairs and get some sleep.<\/p>\n

They sat on opposing couches separated by a sizable ottoman. Kate popped open her laptop to catch up on some work. Moments later, she looked up to see her husband slumped over. He made \u201ca kind of guttural noise,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

Kate at first wondered if he had dropped his glasses. Then she saw that he was unconscious. She yelled for her older son Conor, then 27, who lives with them in Erie. She managed to maneuver Ted from between couch and ottoman, get him on his back and start CPR chest compressions. She then told Siri to call 911.<\/p>\n

An Erie police officer showed up minutes later, Conor having left the door open when hustling to a neighbor\u2019s home in search of an automated external defibrillator, or AED. The officer asked Kate to leave the room. He\u2019d take it from there until the paramedics arrived. As she walked out, she heard her husband\u2019s ribs crack under the force of the officer\u2019s efforts to keep him alive.<\/p>\n

It felt like GERD. It was much more serious.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ted had had a heart attack. But not that night.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks before, what he figured was a nasty case of gastroesophageal reflux disease<\/a>, or GERD, had set in. Kate had fetched Prilosec, but the apparent stomach pain didn\u2019t stop, and it hurt to the point that he was sleeping upright.<\/p>\n

Kate had been pressing him to get checked out at urgent care, but Ted was busy with his work as an attorney doing family law and high-conflict divorce cases. Finally, on the Saturday morning of Feb. 21, the pain was such that he asked her to take him in.<\/p>\n

The urgent care provider took vitals. \u201cHis eyes got really wide,\u201d Kate said. \u201cThen he said, \u2018You need to get to the hospital.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At a community hospital in Lafayette, providers found his heart\u2019s left anterior descending artery \u2014 known as \u201cthe widow maker\u201d \u2014 completely blocked. They performed a balloon angioplasty<\/a> and inserted a stent to reopen it. Ted stayed in the hospital overnight. But by Sunday afternoon, his heart function looked good despite the heart attack. Ted went home with instructions to get more rest, change his diet and enroll in cardiac rehabilitation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Ted
Ted and Kate D’Arcy take daily walks through open space behind their Weld County neighborhood. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Heart attack triggers a ventricular tachycardia storm<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Five days later, he was in an ambulance. Paramedics managed to restart his heart through defibrillator shocks. The heart attack had in fact damaged Ted\u2019s heart, and in a dangerous way: It was now prone to ventricular tachycardia storms<\/a>, in which the heart contracts haphazardly and stops moving much blood. That, in turn, further damages the heart.<\/p>\n

Ted\u2019s condition deteriorated, and he landed in the ICU. He developed pneumonia. Between that and the pain from the broken ribs, doctors decided to put him on a ventilator. The Tuesday after he collapsed, he was transferred to a larger hospital in Denver.<\/p>\n

The initial hope was that an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD, could be the next step in treatment. But the damage to Ted\u2019s heart was too great. A ventricular tachycardia storm before dawn the following day took several external defibrillator shocks to restart his heart. Ted\u2019s heart was failing. Doctors put him on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO<\/a>, delegating the work of Ted\u2019s heart and lungs to a machine.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a temporary solution. Ted would need a heart transplant<\/a>, and soon. The second-closest heart transplant center for adult patients was a 500-mile drive away. The closest was eight miles down the road at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital<\/a> on the Anschutz Campus<\/a>, ranked in the top 10 nationally<\/a> in terms of the number of procedures done a year. And \u2014 vitally in Ted\u2019s case \u2014 its 15-day average wait for a heart transplant was about half as long or less than it was among the rest of the top 10. Ted went straight to the hospital\u2019s cardiac ICU.<\/p>\n

Assessing for a heart transplant is an involved process<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Patients on ECMO to support both heart and lung function, as was the case with Ted, typically can only stay on it for a few days, and the clock was ticking.<\/p>\n

Dr. Prateeti Khazanie<\/a>, an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist at the UCHealth Transplant Center – Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion<\/a> in Aurora, took the lead with D\u2019Arcy\u2019s care. She ordered various scans and other tests to assess his physical state as others attended to financial and other issues surrounding a heart transplant. For example, Khazanie said, the recovery time of a heart transplant requires consistent family or outside support for a solid three months after transplant, so a social worker must ensure that the patient has that support.<\/p>\n

Khazanie, also an associate professor<\/a> of cardiology at University of Colorado Anschutz<\/a>, then met with a multidisciplinary team including specialists in cardiology, cardiac surgery, pathology, radiology, and others to talk through the viability of the transplant and the path forward. They agreed that Ted needed a transplant ASAP.<\/p>\n

The UCHealth Transplant Center listed him for a donor heart on Friday, March 6. By that Sunday, they had found a possible match. Khazanie and Dr. Michael Cain<\/a>, a UCHealth transplant surgeon and an assistant professor<\/a> of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, based that call on factors as diverse as the size, age, and health status of the patient to the sorts of antibody proteins in the donor\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

Just six days after hospital admission, a heart transplant<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cain does about 40 heart transplants a year, roughly half of the UCHealth transplant center\u2019s total. This one would happen on Tuesday, March 10, four days after D\u2019Arcy was listed.<\/p>\n

Not all transplant centers would take a high-risk case like Ted\u2019s, he said. But Colorado\u2019s geographic isolation means that very sick patients have no other option, as would be the case in a major coastal city with multiple heart transplant centers. Khazanie added that the transplant center\u2019s geographic isolation provides a wider local catchment for organ donors, and therefore less competition for scarce donor organs. So, the hospital has in recent years refined its critical care and other competencies to sustain high-risk patients prior to surgery and help them with recovery afterward.<\/p>\n

Whether the patient is typically sick or gravely ill, a heart transplant procedure doesn\u2019t differ much, Cain said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the management of his physiology and the recovery \u2014 that really requires the comprehensive team that we have here, and it\u2019s a team that\u2019s built experience over a long time of doing transplants,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Left
Left to right, Conor, Ted, Quinn and Kate D\u2019Arcy in their backyard, in T-shirts the family created in support of Ted\u2019s heart transplant surgery. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A successful heart transplant on a very high-risk patient<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ted\u2019s extended family, sporting \u201cTeam Ted\u201d T-shirts, filled a good portion of the waiting room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just needed to get through those hours and to just stay focused on nothing but positive thoughts that he is obviously going to be just fine,\u201d Kate said.<\/p>\n

The roughly four-hour operation went smoothly.<\/p>\n

\"Ted
Ted D’Arcy’s sons: Quinn and Conor D’Arcy (left to right) show the shirts they created in honor of their dad. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted came off ECMO in the operating room right after surgery, \u201cwhich is always a wonderful sign that the new heart is doing all the work for him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ted spent 10 days in the cardiac ICU, transferred to the cardiac floor, and then the inpatient rehabilitation unit<\/a>. Ted\u2019s heart was working well; the rest of his body now needed a lot of work. Kate recalled the surgeon remarking that her husband was the weakest person in the state, and maybe the region, for the last 48 hours he was on ECMO.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much I had deteriorated physically, that\u2019s still a shock,\u201d Ted said. \u201cI could not believe that I couldn\u2019t stand. I tried, but I couldn\u2019t stand when they were trying to get me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ted did three hours of physical therapy a day and also occupational therapy to work through the shakes the antirejection drugs caused. Khazanie monitored him for cardiovascular issues and potential infection as well as assessing the impact of immunosuppression drugs through biopsies and other tests. On April 8, more than a month after he arrived at University of Colorado Hospital, he headed home.<\/p>\n

\"Kate
Kate D’Arcy slathers sunblock on her husband before their morning walk. He was staying up late to watch a press conference after a Denver Nuggets game when heart problems that led to a heart transplant began. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Months later, his heart transplant recovery continues<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Five months after his transplant, Ted\u2019s incisions have healed, and cardiac rehabilitation three times a week has built strength enough to ditch the walker he was frustrated to have to rely on. He\u2019s going on walks with Kate, doing light weight training, and aims to start hiking soon. His transplanted heart is performing well, and there are no signs of rejection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still can\u2019t run, but that\u2019s one of my goals,\u201d Ted said.<\/p>\n

His only transplant-related health problem was the emergence of skin cancer, probably a result of his immune system being suppressed. Dermatology experts, on the lookout because it\u2019s common among organ-transplant patients, removed them, Ted said.<\/p>\n

\"Ted
Ted D’Arcy’s custom Nike Air Force Ones, designed by Marcus from Sicario Studios, include symbols tied to his journey as a patient. Red accents honor his heart donor while the leather heart symbolizes the his family and gold stitching represents Ted’s community. The blue nubuck symbolizes the dream state he described throughout his journey. Photo by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAll in all, I\u2019m pleased with my progress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Khazanie echoed that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s doing great,\u201d she said. \u201cIf he wasn\u2019t in the right place at the right time, and if other things hadn\u2019t happened, he would have died.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those other things was staying up late to watch a Denver Nuggets game. When the team returns to the court this fall, Kate and Ted D\u2019Arcy will be tuning in. Win or lose, it won\u2019t be life-or-death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even the most die-hard fans will admit that a Denver Nuggets game is not a life-or-death affair. For Ted D\u2019Arcy, however, the game on Feb. 27 was. D\u2019Arcy, then 61, and his wife Kate had stayed up late to watch an overtime thriller in Oklahoma City where the Nuggets came up short against the defending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":93354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3512,8763,1013,3300,3511,277,130,39,1497],"class_list":["post-93346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-heart-and-vascular-care-cardiovascular","tag-heart-attack-care","tag-heart-failure","tag-heart-surgery-treatments","tag-heart-transplants","tag-metro-denver","tag-rehabilitation","tag-transplant-services","tag-uchealth-university-of-colorado-hospital"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHeart transplant after cardiac arrest gives Colorado man a second chance - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ted D'Arcy survived a heart attack, cardiac arrest and a high-risk heart transplant. 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