NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A national award has just been given to a member of our community who saves lives for a living. There's a whole other part of his story that shows one man as a truly multi-gifted local hero.
Getting out on the road is very much on the mind of 14-year-old Anjali Babu.
"I'm 15 in two months," she smiled. "Very exciting! It's cool that I'm going to be able to go places."
"She's gonna call me the cool dad," laughed her father, Ashok Babu. "That's what she's gonna say. We'll see, though."
"I mean, he's, like, the best dad ever," Anjali said. "He's just someone you love to be around. He's just amazing."
Truly, that only begins to describe Anjali's dad.
Dr. Ashok Babu is a cardiothoracic surgeon for Ascension Saint Thomas who led the relaunch of the hospital's heart transplant program.
"We all have something we're really good at, and we just have to find it," Dr. Babu said.
Turns out, he has found more than one something. He's also a mechanic.
"I had this calling or compulsion to kinda fix things that are broken," Dr. Babu said. "I had great joy in being able to fix something."
Developing a love of cars as a child, he worked in an auto shop in college. Dr. Babu said there is a link between the work he does on cars and the work he does at Ascension Saint Thomas.
"There's the wise mechanic and the wise cardiac surgeon," he explained. "As we gain experience, we can look at a situation and say, 'I've seen this. We should do this.'"
No one could value Dr. Babu's experience more than Robert Marcom.
"I just felt a tightness in my chest," Marcom remembered, thinking back to the day of his heart attack. "I had a friend come over who's a nurse, and she said, 'he's having a heart attack. You better call 9-1-1.'"
The ambulance brought him to Ascension Saint Thomas West.
"That ambulance driver was telling the other one, 'this ain't looking too good,'" Marcom said. "That's the last thing I remember."
There, a blood clot was removed, and a device was implanted to help Marcom's heart pump blood to his body. Dr. Babu later performed Marcom's life-saving heart transplant surgery. His life is so different now. Marcom is back out on the road himself.
"I just got done doing 128-mile bike rides," he said. "It's been amazing. It's a pleasure. It's really humbling to be able to do that."
Dr. Babu's restoring the family van for Anjali to soon get her ready for the road.
"I wouldn't want anyone else to work on it," said Dr. Babu. "It's kinda nice to know it's done right, and she can drive a car that I've worked on."
He and Anjali worked together under the hood of the car.
"She's been changing oil on cars probably as early as nine or ten years old," Dr. Babu smiled. "She'll teach her husband how to do it one of these days!"
"He definitely holds everything to a high standard, for sure," Anjali said.
That's what he does, keeping people safe with those gifted hands.
"I just want to thank him, Dr. Babu, for all he's done for me," said Marcom.
About that big award, Dr. Babu's ECMO team at Ascension Saint Thomas used a new procedure to support people with acute heart failure. Their writings on their case series have just received a national award at a major industry conference.
