Mickey Peretz, age 36, began his evening at a Beitar Jerusalem soccer game. Little did he know that he would end the evening being the first patient to receive a life-saving heart catheterization in Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem’s brand new Irma and Paul Milstein Heart Center.

Mr. Peretz, who lives in Israel’s central region, was making his way to Jerusalem with three of his friends. “We were a bit delayed,” he says, “so after parking our car near Teddy Stadium, we started running towards Teddy to make sure we didn’t miss any of the match. After about three hundred meters, I began to feel a burning sensation in my diaphragm.”

Despite the burning sensation, Mr. Peretz continued toward the stadium and entered the stands. “The burning carried across my chest and intensified,” he says. “One of my friends noticed that I was sweating quite a bit, and my body temperature felt like it was constantly fluctuating between hot and cold. My friend realized something was wrong and ran to call the on-site paramedic to check me out. Before I knew it, I was in an ambulance with a paramedic, who gave me an aspirin. Within minutes I arrived at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, where I met Dr. Ronny Alcalai, who performed a heart catheterization.”

Dr. Alcalai recalls receiving an urgent page to perform a cardiac catheterization procedure for “a very young patient who suffered a heart attack.” During the diagnostic part of the catheterization, she says, “it became clear that his heart attack was caused by a coronary artery blockage. We were surprised to discover, however, that two of his three coronary arteries were blocked.”

 “The catheterization procedure took longer than usual,” Dr. Alcalai reports, “lasting for about an hour and a half, primarily due to the abnormal position of one of his arteries.” The procedure, she notes, was successful, and “we were very happy to find that the patient was feeling much better. This is an excellent example of the importance and effectiveness of a micro-invasive treatment, allowing a young person like Mr. Peretz to return to normal life, despite the heart attack he experienced.”

 Mr. Peretz is now recovering nicely. “I think I was very fortunate that everything happened at the game in Jerusalem. I received incredible care by an amazing medical staff at Hadassah, and, coincidentally, was the inaugural patient in their new, beautiful Heart Center.”

Pictured in photo above from left to right: Dr. Mahsati Ibrahimly, Miki Peretz, and Head Nurse of the Catheterization Unit, , Yehudit Vaknin