(New Brunswick, NJ) - Taking a walk to appreciate the autumn leaves. Watching hawks circle and perch in her backyard. Attending her son’s first high school football game and cheering for her daughter at her first rugby tournament. These are some of the joys Sara Adair loves, but almost didn’t get the chance to experience after she suffered a life-threatening aortic dissection at her Hunterdon home last summer.
Sara now has a new lease on life thanks to innovative Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) technology available at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH). This technology enabled an immediate diagnosis in the Emergency Department, saving critical time and significantly improving her chances of survival. RWJUH is an RWJBarnabas Health facility.
An aortic dissection is a tear in the wall of the aorta, the body’s main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. This condition is often fatal and patients require emergency surgery if they reach the hospital in time.
POCUS allows clinicians to visualize how the heart is functioning immediately at the patient’s bedside. It also helps clinicians to evaluate hemodynamic changes and pathological heart diseases.
Last July, Sara was home with her family when she experienced sudden chest pain unlike anything she’d felt before. Within a minute, the pain moved down her neck.
About Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) New Brunswick, an RWJBarnabas Health Facility, is a 628-bed academic medical center that is New Jersey’s largest academic medical center through its deep partnership with Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. RWJUH is the flagship Cancer Hospital of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, a nationally-ranked 2024-25 Best Children’s Hospital by U.S. News & World Report. Centers of Excellence include cardiovascular care from minimally invasive heart surgery to transplantation, cancer care, stroke care, neuroscience, orthopedics, bariatric surgery and women’s health. A Level 1 Trauma Center and the first designated Pediatric Trauma Center in the state, RWJUH’s New Brunswick campus serves as a national resource in its ground-breaking approaches to emergency preparedness. Learn more at www.rwjbh.org/newbrunswick or www.bmsch.org.
Contact: Peter Haigney
RWJUH Public Relations
(732) 937-8568