Guitar scales are the gateway to harmonious melodies and, as Mark Crenshaw has learned, to a renewed sense of normalcy.
The former professional musician suffered a heart attack, cardiac arrest and seven-week coma in November 2020. After the life-threatening event, Crenshaw wondered whether he’d ever get his old life back, with the guitar and the music he loved. Crenshaw’s memory, mobility and speech all had been impacted by the medical crisis that had deprived his brain of critical oxygen. He also struggled with finger dexterity.
Two years later, when he was finally able to recall his guitar scales, it seemed a harbinger: A complete recovery was within his grasp.
Today, Crenshaw, 46, credits his care team at Torrance Memorial Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute, including physician Aziz Ghaly, MD, with saving his life.
“Dr. Ghaly is my hero,” Crenshaw said. “He brought me back from cardiac arrest and maintained hope and positivity that I would make a full recovery.”
Ghaly is the medical director of the Lundquist Lurie Cardiac Surgery Program at Torrance Memorial and a faculty member in Cedars-Sinai’s Department of Cardiac Surgery, part of the Smidt Heart Institute. Ghaly credits solid collaboration between the two institutions—as well as Crenshaw’s strength and upbeat attitude—for the remarkable recovery.
The Heart of Collaboration
While Crenshaw was in a coma, he experienced kidney failure, liver deterioration and respiratory failure. But thanks to the close working relationship between Torrance Memorial and Cedars-Sinai, he had access to state-of-the-art treatments and care, all right there in his Torrance community.
Torrance Memorial became a Cedars-Sinai affiliate in 2018. While the hospital already was known for its standout cardiovascular program, more options for advanced heart failure patients have stemmed from the partnership.
“The talent assembled at Torrance Memorial, as part of our joint heart program, is stellar,” said Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, executive director of the Smidt Heart Institute and the Mark S. Siegel Family Foundation Distinguished Professor at Cedars-Sinai. “We’re proud to partner with this outstanding hospital to bring advanced care options and further enhance cardiac health in the South Bay community.”
Among the options available to advanced heart failure patients at Torrance Memorial are temporary mechanical assist devices, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and Impella 5.0 heart pump. Both were used to reduce strain on Crenshaw’s heart during recovery from acute cardiogenic shock—which can occur after a heart attack and prevents the heart from effectively pumping enough blood to the rest of the body.
Torrance Memorial was the first hospital in the South Bay to offer Impella 5.0 for patients who need short- or long-term aid in pumping blood. The ECMO, used in emergencies to support vital organs, is typically only found at major academic medical centers—Torrance Memorial has several ECMO machines.
Once a heart patient at Torrance Memorial is stabilized, the individual has direct access to the heart transplant program at Cedars-Sinai if further advanced treatments are needed. And Cedars-Sinai has created an outpatient clinic at Torrance Memorial, where its heart transplant and advanced heart failure cardiologists can evaluate patients.
Other areas of collaboration extend to structural heart therapies and minimally invasive valve therapies. Patients also have access to innovative clinical trials as a result of the partnership between Cedars-Sinai and Torrance Memorial. These clinical trials—which span multiple specialty areas, from hypertension to heart failure, and from aortic disease to women’s heart disease—can broaden available treatment options for patients.
“The partnership between Cedars-Sinai and Torrance Memorial has been positive all around—in particular, for our South Bay patients,” Ghaly said. “We hear again and again how grateful they are to be able to continue to receive excellent care close to home while also taking advantage of the many resources that are now available to them through Cedars-Sinai.”
A Fresh Start
Crenshaw needed months of intensive physical therapy when he emerged from his coma. Through rehabilitation, he learned to walk again and speak without slurring his words. He still doesn’t remember getting to Torrance Memorial that day in November 2020—and it wasn’t until six months after he came out of the coma that Ghaly helped fill in some of the missing pieces about his time in the hospital.
Crenshaw recently moved from California back to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, where he’s been able to experience a fresh start.
Like tiles in a mosaic, gaps in his memory continue to fill every day.
“When I pick up my guitar, I can’t yet play as well as I used to, but at least I know how to play,” he said. “I’m continuing to get back in the groove, and I’m so thankful for Torrance Memorial and for Dr. Ghaly. The two of us have a spiritual kindred-ness.”
