It's been 20 years since a cutting-edge heart procedure saved a Cobb County mother's life.
Hanna Bauer's story began in pre-school, thousands of miles from the Atlanta hospital she believes saved her life.
Hanna had the cards stacked against her. When she and her mom turned up one night in the Emergency Room of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, the doctors and nurses couldn't believe she was still alive.
That night was the first step in healing Hanna.
Born in Venezuela, Hannah Bauer was four years old when her heart began racing, then stopping. By 10, she'd suffered two heart attacks, the second nearly killed her.
A Venezuelan doctor gave her six months, telling her parent her only chance was to find a heart doctor in America.
"And within two months my father got the visa to come over here," said Hannah.
They spoke no English, but Hanna's EKG told Children's cardiologist Dr. Robert Campbell all he needed to know.
"She pulls this out and I go, ‘I get it now...Now I get it.' So it's the international language of EKG," said Campbell.
Hanna's diagnosis was supra ventricular tachycardia --a dangerously fast heart rate It was being triggered by a tiny area in the upper chambers of her heart.
"It basically runs really fast on its own, it speeds up and slows down on its own accord. It doesn't have any physiologic rhyme or reason," said Campbell.
Hanna's nurse, Angie Hawthorne, could sense their desperation.
"And the medications we had to offer had so many bad side effects. So, you know, as a mother, it made my heart hurt, because I knew we really had nothing to offer her," said Hawthorne.
When the medicines failed, they tried heart catherization, then open-chest surgery. Both failed.
At 14, Hanna had only one more option.
Back in 1992, cardiac ablation was high-risk and experimental. Hanna was the fourth Children's patient to try it.
It took eight hours for Campbell and his team, to tease a heated wire tip up to a tiny spot in Hanna's heart, sending it into overdrive. There, they turned it off, like a light switch.
"It worked so simply, it was almost a miracle. We just fell into the right spot and it was gone," said Campbell.
"That was a life changer for me," said Hanna. "It was like, ‘We made it. We're here."
It's been 20 years. Hanna is now a U.S. citizen, a college graduate and married with four young children.
"We have a busy, busy life. The heart, no heart problems. It has been good. It's been strong," said Hannah.
It wasn't easy, but Hanna believes Dr. Campbell and Angie gave her the gift, of a heart finally healed.
Bauer helped open the door for a lot of other children with heart disease.
Today, more than 2.000 kids have undergone cardiac ablation at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
This year's heart walk is this Saturday beginning at Atlantic Station. Opening ceremonies begin at 7:30 a.m. The walk gets underway at 8 a.m.
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Hanna Bauer underwent a cutting-edge heart procedure 20 years ago in Atlanta.
