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Jan 10, 2008 6:59 pm US/Central
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New Type Of Surgery Used For Dog Attack Victim
(WCCO)
A new kind of surgery is helping a Minnesota mother -- who was attacked by her friend's dogs -- enjoy a normal life.
A bulldog and a pit bull jumped Paula Ybarra last March. One bite tore an artery that never healed right.
The tear in Ybarra's artery caused strokes and could have lead to an aneurysm. Her doctors at Hennepin County Medical Center decided to try something new.
On Jan. 9, surgeons put a stent normally used in the heart into her neck.
Now, 10 months after dogs nearly killed her, Paula Ybarra has reason to smile. She just had her final surgery on her road to recovery.
"I'm just so happy that it's over and everything turned out great," said Ybarra.
"In the past, we would have closed up this vertebral artery and allowed her to just live off one vertebral artery supplying the back of the brain," said Dr. Vallabh Janardhan, of the Hennepin County Medical Center.
However, the procedure would have left Ybarra with only one working artery to the back of her brain, which was an anxiety she didn't want to live with. So, she told her doctors to go ahead with the new surgery.
The surgery resulted in closing the gap where the tear was and the artery began working like it was supposed to.
"They've never done it. Never done it before, but ... I trusted my doctor. Trusted him and I knew that I'd be alright," said Ybarra.
Just one day after surgery, Ybarra headed home to her three young girls.
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