For the first time locally, Meritus removes a blood clot from a lung

A Washington County man has a new lease on life thanks to Meritus Interventional Radiology.

A 77-year-old Boonsboro resident and small-business owner is the first person to have a blood clot removed from their lung at Meritus Medical Center.

Elmer Wachter, who co-owns Myersville Exxon and Mason-Dixon Dragway, is the hospital’s first pulmonary embolism thrombectomy patient, said Sabri Yilmaz, M.D., with Meritus Interventional Radiology.

The procedure is common in tertiary medical centers, such as Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland or UPMC in Pittsburgh, where Dr. Yilmaz practiced before coming to Hagerstown.

“The complexity of cases that we do here at this point are the procedures you would get referred to a tertiary center,” Dr. Yilmaz said. “We have the skillset to provide almost everything that’s provided at those tertiary centers.”

Since Wachter’s case in late March, Interventional Radiology has performed the procedure on at least 10 patients.

“Yes, these are procedures that, you know, not very frequently see, but they’re pretty much life-threatening if they end up being large clots, like Mr. Wachter’s,” Dr. Yilmaz said. “This is not only for Hagerstown, but I believe there are communities around in southern Pennsylvania, the Eastern Panhandle of west Virginia, we have started getting those patients, and once the word is out, that will increase.”

For Wachter, things started when he drove to a national event at the dragstrip in Gainesville, Florida, a trip he’s made every year since 1970.

“It was just me, so I drove straight down and straight back when it was over,” he said. “So that’s an 11-hour, 11-and-a-half-hour trip. I only got out once for fuel. So, I think that’s what caused my problem.”

Sitting for extended periods can cause clots to form in the legs. Those clots can dislodge and travel to the heart and into the lungs, Dr. Yilmaz said. The clots then block what are known as pulmonary arteries, which carry blood from the heart to the lungs.

A day or so after his trip, Wachter began noticing he was short of breath. After a few episodes over a couple days, he was taken by ambulance to Meritus. He was given tests which determined there were clots in his lung, which Dr. Yilmaz told him were “massive,” Wachter said.

“To me, a blood clot would have been a little finger-size, what’s what I felt a blood clot looks like, not knowing,” he said. “And then when he said it was massive, I figured maybe peanut-size.”

It was much bigger.

“I can remember a nurse or a technologist … holding it up to show me what it was,” he said, “and it looked like a snake.”

Dr. Yilmaz said that, aside from shortness of breath, the clot puts pressure on the right side of the heart.

“We pretty much like plumbers go the same route as the clot traveled, through the groin, up through the heart into this pulmonary artery, and with 8-millimeter catheters, suction the clot out,” he said. “We take the clots out, and the pressures come down, the right heart strain goes down, the patient obviously gets much better blood flow, and everything is back to normal.”

Wachter said he had a “weird sensation” during the procedure, but no pain.

“I could feel breathing and a pressure went off of me when they removed the first one,” he said.

Because the surgery was minimally invasive, Wachter’s time in the hospital was only two days, and he didn’t have complications.

“My recovery was excellent,” he said. “I felt like I was treated like a king.”

But it wasn’t until a doctor’s visit after a month that he learned what could have happened.

“I mean I didn’t realize how close I was to not being around,” Wachter said. “I can remember my visit with the hematologist 30 days later and him saying, ‘You probably really shouldn’t even be here. Your death certificate probably would have said “heart attack,” and they would have left it at that.’”

Now, he has a new lease on life, which he spends with his daughter and two grandchildren.

“I’m not finished in my life yet,” he said.

For more information, visit www.meritushealth.com/InterventionalRadiology.