A calm mind in a critical moment
When 66‑year‑old Edith Pue felt a sudden shot of pain in her chest while going about her day, nothing could have prepared her family for what followed. Her son Will remembers it as the moment everything changed: "She's a go-getter. She loves her hill walking, shopping and just being out and about. You know, it's something that none of us were ever expecting. It's a shock to the system for all of us."
Specialists quickly discovered a major tear in her aorta, the main artery carrying blood from her heart, a life‑threatening condition requiring one of the most complex operations in heart surgery.
Edith was flown from her home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to the Barts Heart Centre at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where she came under the care of Professor Aung Ye Oo, one of the world’s leading aortic surgeons.
Prof Oo, who qualified in 1988, understood the magnitude of what lay ahead. "It is a very dangerous operation, it's one of the most complex operations that you can perform in aortic surgery. So many things can go wrong with this operation. So it is a big privilege as well as a big pressure on my shoulder."
To save Edith's life, Prof Oo would need to remove the damaged section of her aorta and replace it with a synthetic substitute, a highly technical procedure requiring complete precision and many hours of sustained focus.
His ability to shoulder that pressure goes back to childhood, shaped by his father who was Burma's (now Myanmar) first heart surgeon. "My father was very keen for meditation… I understand that the value of it. I can concentrate in the middle of all the things going on… and then complete the task without having to be distracted a lot."
That stillness was evident in theatre. As he tested the repair, he guided the team calmly: "So now we're going to remove this clamp at the lower end to allow the blood to come back into the graft and see any bleeding from this joining." Hours of focused work paid off. "The operation was successful and everything went as we expected."
Four weeks on, Edith finally stepped outside into daylight in the hospital square. "First time in four weeks, going outside," Will said proudly.
"Let’s go," Edith replied.
Preparing to fly back to Belfast, Edith shared her relief: "Can't wait to get home."
And for Will, the gratitude is clear: "It's been a long journey but we've got here finally.
"The hospital and the staff are incredible. It gave us peace of mind too knowing that she was here and she was being well looked after."
Edith’s story appears in episode three of Alice Roberts: Our Hospital Through Time, a new Channel 5 series exploring how Barts has progressed from centuries‑old surgical techniques to world‑leading, modern care.
Catch up on the series now. Episode four airs Wednesday 11 March at 8pm on Channel 5.
Pictured (top to bottom): Prof Oo in the hospital gardens; Edith's son Will ahead of her operation; and Edith in the hospital square, preparing to go home.
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