I started noticing chest pains and had difficulty breathing. There were times I even thought I was having a heart attack and had to sit and calm down,” said Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Jerell McCool, USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) Aviation Intermediate Maintenance Department. “I worried because my grandfather died at age 35 because of a heart attack, and my father, who is now 53 years old, has had four heart attacks since he was 40.”

McCool, who has been stationed on the Lincoln for more than three years, had been a normal, happy-go-lucky, hard charging Sailor, in good health until he started to experience these symptoms. He started to notice the symptoms while the ship was underway on its 2008 deployment.

“Eventually, my chief made me go to medical to get checked out,” he said. “I was nervous to hear what was wrong with me.”

On his visit to Lincoln’s medical services McCool was hooked up to an electrocardiogram (EKG), at which point the doctors discovered an abnormal heart beat.

“The first thing I asked was how bad it was, and will I live,” he said.

McCool was referred to Naval Hospital Bremerton shortly after, where a gauntlet of tests and blood work were administered.

The doctors eventually diagnosed him with Wolff Parkinsons White Syndrome (WPW).

According to WebMD.com, WPW syndrome is a rare heart disorder that causes irregularities in the electrical pulses in the heart. In individuals with WPW syndrome, an abnormal alternate electrical pathway occurs between the atrium and the ventricle, causing abnormal heart beats.

“For a 25-year old it’s crazy to think I could die during this operation. The hardest part about the whole thing was having to say goodbye to my wife,” said McCool, who is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. “Knowing it might be the last time we see each other, it was very difficult. But the doctors assured me that everything would go fine, and it was possible to cure my condition.”

In early January, McCool was sent to Naval Hospital Balboa, San Diego for surgery to correct his condition.

“Going in, I was so scared. In the back of my mind was I was constantly thinking about the fact that there are always complications, something might go wrong,” he said. “Another thing that bothered me was that the doctors couldn’t see exactly where the extra tissue was, they were going in blind. There were talks of the tissue being on the left side of my heart, and that it would be hard to get to. There were also worries about them tearing my heart.”

During the nearly four-hour surgery, doctors went into McCool’s heart through a small instrument inserted into the arteries in his neck and burned out the extra tissues and nerve endings.

“I woke up in recovery very confused, I barely remember it,” he said. “The nurses say the first thing I did was ask for a cheeseburger with mayonnaise,” he said. “When I finally came to, I asked how the operation went. I was relieved to hear everything went well.”

McCool’s family came to comfort him during his recovery, and was able to stay at the hospital overnight each night.

Shortly following the surgery, McCool said he had a follow-up EKG performed, and the doctors said everything looked good.

“I’m glad the doctors caught it. If I wasn’t in the Navy, I probably wouldn’t have gotten an EKG, and I wouldn’t have known about my heart problems,” he said. “I’m very grateful.  I feel like they corrected a wrong that could have been a permanent wrong. They saved my life.”