Catheter Ablation an Effective Treatment for Atrial Fibrillation What is atrial fibrillation, or Afib? What causes it? Who’s at risk? See how experts at Miami Neuroscience Institute cured a Miami firefighter with Afib, returning him to work so he can keep saving lives.
{TRANSCRIPT}: My name is Mark Watson. I'm 49 years old. I'm a firefighter/paramedic here in MiamiDade County. I work for MiamiDade County Fire Rescue. And I've been working there as a firefighter/paramedic for almost 20 years. I've lived in Miami my entire life except for when I went away to college. So when I first found out I had AFib was several years ago. I never had like the chest pain or the palpitations or the racing heart or, you know, it was kind of what I figured to be something minor. Explanations just didn't add up, especially being a paramedic. You know, I knew, like okay, I could take my own pulse and figure out that this is probably what it is, but I should go to the emergency room. You know, I felt comfortable going to the hospital, and that's what people should do, you know? Because it's not going to go away on its own. So then, I had an episode of AFib, and I took the medicine. It didn't go away, so I took it again at night. It didn't go away, so I went without an appointment. I just showed up at Dr. Siegel's office. And that's when he said, "I think you should make a consult with a electrophysiologist."

So I met Mr. Mark Watson around September of 2022. And at that time, you know, he came in to see me because he was having some significant palpitations. And so that's when our conversations first started. You know, he's a frontline worker. Mark's a firefighter, so you know, a lot of people depend on him when he's called into action. And he had come to the office because he was having significant palpitations or irregular heartbeats and said he'd be feeling okay, and all of a sudden, he would just feel his heart racing. And so, you know, clearly, when you're a frontline worker, this is something that's concerning for the patient and for Mark himself and definitely for us, because we know others are depending on him. The most common symptoms of AFib are probably a little more subtle than that. And that's decreased energy levels and just things that used to be pretty easy to do, all of sudden, become much more difficult. Because of his young age, we decided to be a little bit more conservative and just watch for symptoms. But I think the most important thing we talked about is really recognizing: When is the right time to proceed with the ablation to have his best longterm outcomes? And it happened kind of just on time is what we say. About a year later, he noticed that his episodes were becoming more frequent, were lasting several hours, up to days, instead of just minutes at a time. And so that's when we realized that the AFib at that point was truly progressing and becoming, you know, much more burdensome to him.

They wheeled me into the procedure room just after 7:30 in the morning. And I was going home that night at like 5:30, 6:00.

Mr. Watson's doing fantastic, and I don't think he can be happier with his outcomes right now. His AFib burden has essentially resolved. He is back to his baseline. He is currently off all his medications which he was on before, and he can't wait to get back to work. So we're going to put him back on that frontline so he can help others and save some lives there.