WORCESTER, Mass. – Walter Lundin has a history of coronary artery disease and a weakened heart muscle, but now, after cardiac interventions at Saint Vincent Hospital, he’s celebrating his heart recovery with the team who made it possible.

Lundin has been managing a weakened heart with medication for about 15 years. Last year, the 85-year-old noticed his regular chores, like moving firewood, started to take a toll.

“We live on a lake. We have a fireplace. I like to burn wood in the fireplace, and I would have a cord-and-a-half of wood delivered. Unfortunately, I built my woodshed a little too far from the driveway, where the wood was dumped," Lundin said. "I would have to sit down and rest, as I just couldn't do it all at once.”

Lundin’s physician said they discovered he had several blockages in all of the major heart arteries. Lundin said stents were put in his arteries and he was able to go home until he had to be rushed back to Saint Vincent’s.

“One day I got off the phone, I went and sat down on the couch and my defibrillator went off and it went off and it went off. And I thought, this is probably it," Lundin said. "And they rushed me back into the hospital and thanks to Dr. Bader and Dr. Laidlaw, here I am.”

“It's really an entire team that participates in the care," Dr. Brandon Bader said, "and really helps to improve the quality of life of patients such as Walter.”

Bader said after a lot of discussion, Lundin’s family didn’t want him to go through a bypass surgery. So as an alternative, a high-risk intervention was offered with the help of an Impella device.

“It’s a pump that fits into inside the left ventricle of the heart," Bader said, "crosses the aortic valve and works as almost like a jet-propeller engine to pump blood from out of the heart into the main blood vessel in the chest, the aorta and helps give the hearts time to rest while we are performing the intervention.”

Bader said cardiovascular disease remains the number one cause of death in the United States and the lifesaving intervention on Lundin would not have been possible without the Impella and other medical tools.

The cardiologist said their goal is improve the quality and quantity of life for patients like Lundin.

“With some expected time for recovery, Walter has made a complete recovery and has been able to go out and enjoy many of the things that he enjoys doing," Bader said. "We were just discussing his fishing trips, as well as, unfortunately, being put back to work, doing yard work this fall, which is exactly the outcomes that we strive for here.”

“A year ago, at this time, I never thought I would feel this good again," Lundin said. "Thank you very much.”