Amy Yasbeck says John Ritter was misdiagnosed on the night he died, treated for a heart attack and given blood thinners before doctors knew he was suffering an acute aortic dissection. She said the mistake in September 2003 set in motion the treatment that led to his death at age 54.
Yasbeck is revisiting that night now because the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health is using Aortic Dissection Awareness Week to launch its 50 for 50 campaign. The effort asks supporters to donate $50 and highlights a stark figure: up to 50% of people who suffer an aortic dissection die before reaching medical care.
She said the campaign is designed to push one message she believes can save lives: chest pain should not automatically be treated as a heart attack. The foundation wants doctors and patients alike to remember that an aortic dissection can look similar at first, especially when the pain arrives suddenly and the patient otherwise seems to fit the profile for cardiac trouble.
Yasbeck said no imaging was done before Ritter was given blood thinners, even though she said he had chest pain and appeared to be the kind of patient clinicians would often associate with a heart attack. She filed a wrongful death lawsuit after his death, alleging that his aortic dissection was misdiagnosed, but in 2008 a jury found in favor of the two physicians remaining in the case.
That history sits behind the foundation’s current push, and it is part of why Yasbeck argues the death toll is probably higher than annual estimates suggest. She said those numbers likely miss people who die before they reach a hospital, which is also why she sees awareness as one of the most effective ways to reduce deaths.
The campaign runs during Aortic Dissection Awareness Week, which lasts from Sept. 13 to 19, and it comes ahead of Sept. 17, when Ritter would have turned 78. For Yasbeck, the goal is not to relive the loss but to widen the window for people who might otherwise be sent home, or treated for the wrong problem, before the tear in the aorta is found.
