Why is Norman Lux smiling? Wouldn't you if you were officially a superhero? Interventional cardiologist Marvin Eng, MD, just performed the first BATMAN procedure (balloon assisted translocation of the mitral anterior leaflet) in Nebraska on Lux. To perform the procedure, Dr. Eng:

• Inserted a catheter through a blood vessel in his leg.
• Guided a balloon to the mitral valve.
• Burned through the old leaflet of the old valve already in place.  

This lets the new valve provide proper blood flow without obstruction from the old leaflet. Lux had open-heart surgery almost 20 years ago and wasn't a candidate for another one. He's a Columbus-area farmer who went from helping a cow give birth to getting the heart valve replaced, back to checking on his cows, all in less than a week.
  

 
“I think it’s an honor that the patients here have that level of trust and allow me,” Dr. Eng told 10/11 news anchor Madison Pitsch. "I want to bring early feasibility technology (here) for these kinds of valves. And there’s no reason we can’t do the most cutting-edge work in Omaha, Nebraska.” 

Norman's wife Doris thought they were going to have to travel outside the state for him to receive care. “We had originally planned on going to Mayo because there wasn’t anybody around here that knew, that did this procedure,” Doris told Pitsch. You can learn more about the procedure by watching Madison's story here.