{"id":579196,"date":"2025-08-09T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=579196"},"modified":"2025-08-09T21:12:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T21:12:46","slug":"tech-support-for-a-veterans-heart-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=579196","title":{"rendered":"Tech support for a Veteran\u2019s heart emergency \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While driving through rural Louisiana,\u00a0Air Force Veteran Bruce Metoyer found himself in a medical emergency. His left ventricular assist device (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.va.gov\/?s=LVAD\">LVAD<\/a>)\u2014a mechanical heart pump which he received a few years ago at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.va.gov\/houston-health-care\/\">Houston VA<\/a> to treat his congestive heart failure\u2014started beeping urgently, indicating a malfunction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Metoyer\u2019s daughter Hannah pulled over to the side of the road and called Erwin Bedia, LVAD nurse practitioner at Houston VA.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cA very serious situation\u2019<\/h2>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Houston_BruceMetoyer_r1-4.png\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Air Force Veteran Bruce Metoyer, his daughter Hannah and granddaughter Riley <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI knew immediately it was a very serious situation,\u201d Bedia said.\u00a0\u201cMr. Metoyer\u2019s LVAD system controller was having a low voltage alarm that did not resolve despite good connections and new sets of battery power and battery clips. The LVAD internal backup battery can only power for 15 minutes and it sure didn\u2019t help that they were on the side of the road, far from help.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bedia and his fellow LVAD nurses Verna Deinla and Jocelyn Revilla stayed on the phone with the family while Hannah drove to the emergency room in Natchitoches, LA.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When Metoyer got to the ER, the Houston VA team coordinated with the local doctors via FaceTime, showing the ER staff how to fix the problem.\u00a0Metoyer was later airlifted to Houston, where he and his LVAD both received a clean bill of health. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was amazing to see how the VA team advocated for me,\u201d Metoyer said. \u201cThey made sure the ER doctors knew exactly what to do. Without them, I don\u2019t know what would have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Part of the family<\/h2>\n<p>Deinla emphasized that the Houston VA LVAD team is committed to being there for each and every Veteran patient at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want our Veterans to live their lives with confidence, knowing that help is always just a phone call away,\u201d she said. \u201cMr. Metoyer and his family are part of our Houston VA family and always will be. It was our pleasure to help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While driving through rural Louisiana,\u00a0Air Force Veteran Bruce Metoyer found himself in a medical emergency. His left ventricular assist device (LVAD)\u2014a mechanical heart pump which he received a few years ago at the Houston VA to treat his congestive heart failure\u2014started beeping urgently, indicating a malfunction.\u00a0 Metoyer\u2019s daughter Hannah pulled over to the side of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":579198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1589,1685,1686],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-houston-va","category-lifeline","category-lvad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=579196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579204,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579196\/revisions\/579204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/579198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=579196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=579196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=579196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}