Centurion toddler dies despite heart surgery

Nathan Swanepoel, a Centurion toddler who was born with six heart defects in June last year, died on Monday afternoon at Steve Biko hospital, Rekord Centurion reports.

“Our little angel has gone to heaven,” said his mother Stephanie Swanepoel.

His death came two-and-a-half weeks after he underwent a five-hour open-heart surgery at the hospital.

However, Nathan suffered a major setback shortly after the surgery with his heart rate falling drastically resulting in doctors having to perform CPR.

Nathan underwent emergency surgery last Thursday after his liver completely failed.

“All his organs were severely swollen so his doctors had to try and get the swelling down to get the blood flowing to the liver,” said his mother.

“Our boy was extremely critical and his doctors seemed hopeful.”

On Monday morning, Nathan was placed under heavy sedation.

“The Lord came to fetch his most precious angel on Monday afternoon,” said Swanepoel.

“As his mom and dad, we would like to thank doctors Nkia, Joshi, Mitchell, Professor Takawira and the paediatric cardiology unit at the Steve Biko hospital.”

“A very special thank you to Dr Martin Myburgh of Sunninghill who did all and more for our little boy and who wept with us following his loss.”

Stephanie said a memorial service will be held along with a private cremation with details to follow.

Shortly before his birth, Nathan was diagnosed with a condition called “transposition of the great arteries”.

This meant his aorta was connected to the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery was connected to the left ventricle – the opposite of a normal heart’s anatomy.

Essentially, Nathan’s oxygen-poor blood returns from the body into the misconnected aorta back to his body. His oxygen-rich blood returns from his lungs and then gets passed back to them by the pulmonary artery.

This condition often called “blue-baby syndrome”, resulted in Nathan’s skin appearing as if without oxygen or blue.