Mars family tells story of son’s fight for life at SRU panel
SLIPPERY ROCK — Fifteen months ago, John Clark spent his Christmas in a bed at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, hooked up to multiple life-support machines. He had lost all function in his kidneys, and one of his feet was turning black.
Today, after two open-heart surgeries, a heart transplant and a partial leg amputation; the 9-year-old is back to doing many of the activities he participated in before he initially fell ill in November 2023.
John’s parents, Jarrod and Megan Clark, told their son’s story at Slippery Rock University’s Robert M. Smith Student Center on Wednesday, March 26, as part of a seminar for the university’s Interprofessional Education program, which educates students from two or more medical professions on how to collaborate to achieve better health outcomes.
“I like to say that we time traveled,” Jarrod said. “John went into the hospital a completely, totally normal kid. Everything happened while we were there, and he came out a completely, totally normal kid. Same attitude, same personality, same likes, interests and dislikes.”
John’s medical issues began after a routine dental visit in November 2023. Later that month, what at first seemed like cold and flu-like symptoms turned into breathing issues, which later developed into septic shock. This led to his first emergency open-heart surgery. After the surgery, it was discovered that John also had suffered a stroke.
Less than two weeks after being rushed to Children’s Hospital, John was discharged and began showing signs of recovery, but it wasn’t long before he relapsed into illness. He was brought back to Children’s Hospital for a second open-heart surgery, but his condition only deteriorated.
“There were some complications with the mesh they put in to repair an aneurysm,” Jarrod said. “His heart function continued to deteriorate, and they put him on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), which is essentially life support.”
At one point, one of the machines keeping John alive malfunctioned, forcing doctors to perform CPR on him with his heart still open.
Eventually, due to poor blood circulation, John’s left leg began deteriorating and turning black from the foot upward. After the decision was delayed for a week, doctors amputated the leg below the knee. On top of that, John also suffered kidney failure, requiring continuous renal replacement therapy devices.
“John’s condition was unprecedented,” Jarrod said. “They had no reference material or cases that they could look back to see what was successful. They never had a kid with heart failure, a stroke, kidney failure and leg amputation at the same time.”
After two and a half weeks in a coma following the second heart surgery, John woke up and spoke on Jan. 4, 2024 — and much to the relief of the family and the medical team, this time he did not suffer a stroke.
The next few months marked a long road to recovery for John, as an army of physical and occupational therapists aimed to bring him back to something resembling his former life. He even managed to graduate from second grade while in the hospital, despite missing 117 days while sick.
“We did physical therapy, occupational therapy. He did everything he was asked to do,” Jarrod said. “And then, once he started feeling better, he started attending school for one hour a day in the hospital. John really thrives in school. That’s like his safe space.”
While John pressed on in therapy, his family waited anxiously for the call that would bring their child his new heart. Adding to the agony, multiple hearts were offered to John, but none of them were considered the right fit for him.
“There were a few offers that came along that the doctors decided to pass on, and that was a process that took several months,” Jarrod said.
Finally, in June 2024, his parents received the call they were waiting for. To be specific, his mother received the call.
“My wife likes to remind me that I missed the call. They called me first and I didn’t answer the phone, and then they called her and she called me,” he said. “But they called us to let us know that they had a heart, and a heart that they liked.”
On June 10, 2024, after 181 days of waiting, John received his new heart in a successful surgery. Today, he is just as active — if not more so — than he was before his illness, playing baseball, participating in karate and taekwondo, and even skiing.
Since Wednesday’s seminar was part of an educational event, the Clarks also discussed what went wrong during John’s treatment so the students could learn from it, and according to his father, there were plenty who did.
In one example, he said there were disagreements between medical professionals as to whether John’s leg needed to be amputated or whether it could be saved.
But despite what Jarrod Clark called “areas for improvement,” he and his wife expressed their gratitude to the numerous medical professionals who saved John’s life, and the vast support system that held the family together in its moment of supreme crisis.
“He had a lot of issues that needed to be cared for and taken care of, and there’s a lot of coordination that had to happen,” his father said. “The nurses provided world-class care one-on-one, and they cared about John. The support system was really important. Church communities and even strangers sent prayers, letters, donations. Just a whole network behind him.”
