171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
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Patient Stories
Logan Holt
When Logan Holt was 18 weeks old, his parents took him to Conway, S.C., to be treated for what they thought was a case of the croup. His pediatrician immediately recognized that the little boy was suffering from something far more serious. The next day, Logan was airlifted to MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston.
There, doctors discovered "complete tracheal rings" that had narrowed Logan's airway to the size of a pinhole, forcing him to fight for every breath of air he could draw. The condition is serious because it can turn an otherwise minor respiratory ailment, such as a cold or allergy, into a life-threatening episode in which the patient's air supply is cut off altogether.
In an ongoing battle to keep Logan's airway open, doctors at MUSC Children's Hospital performed more than 75 surgical procedures over 18 months. During the most intense period of his treatment, Logan was undergoing surgery every two days. Because his condition required constant attention, he spent most of his young life in the hospital, including 544 consecutive days in the pediatric intensive care unit.
That all changed in April 2001, when Dr. Biemann Othersen and Dr. William Adamson at MUSC Children's Hospital designed a special silicon tube to be implanted at the base of Logan's trachea.
The tube was designed to keep Logan's airway open and provide structural support to his trachea, which had become flaccid due to repeated surgeries. Furthermore, this tube caused less irritation to his trachea than earlier models, meaning that Logan would no longer require frequent surgeries to remove scar tissue. His doctors believe that, over time, Logan's windpipe will achieve a normal growth pattern, eliminating the need for the silicon tube.
In late April 2001, Logan Holt was finally able to say goodbye to the doctors, nurses, therapists and volunteers and return home to Loris, S.C. Today, his parents describe the joy of watching him squeal, chase his older brother around the coffee table, and breathe easily for the first time in his life. It's a victory they credit to their friends at MUSC Children's Hospital.
"I could never say enough about the doctors at the Children's Hospital, and I could never sing enough praises for the nurses and the therapists," says his mother, Tammy. "Each one of them treated Logan as if he was their own child, and they did everything they could to provide him with the most normal environment in the most unusual setting you can imagine."
"That's the one thing that made the last 18 months easier for us to endure - knowing that we were only two hours away from the best specialists in the world for the kind of care Logan needed," says his father, Dale. "Without them, there's no telling where we'd be today."
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