Indy doctors help save 8-month-old boy with rare heart defect
Posted: Nov 2, 2011 10:33 PM EDT | Updated: Nov 6, 2014 1:28 PM EDT
TERRE HAUTE, Ind.--Today doctors at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis helped save an Indiana boy who underwent potentially life-saving surgery.
Doctors hope to correct a birth defect they say is one in a million. Eight-month-old Joey Sanquenetti looks like every other baby, but on the inside Joey's different.
His heart is on the wrong side of his chest and backwards.
"Normally your heart is on the left side and facing left,” says Joey’s mother Heather Roman. “His is on the right side and facing right and the arteries are all switched also."
A displaced heart is common, but it's extremely rare to have all three defects. Doctors say it's a miracle Joey is even alive.