Christopher Stevens

"Chest pain can be anything," says cardiologist Raed Jitan, MD, FACC, "but a life-threatening aneurysm is infrequent." Fortunately though, when 44-year old Christopher Stevens, a Brick resident, arrived at the John Boyd and Kathryn Roberta Mitchell Pavilion for Emergency Services at Bayshore Community Hospital in Holmdel complaining of a pulled muscle after lifting a case of apples at the Stop + Shop in Aberdeen where he is an assistant produce manager, the physicians and staff were reluctant to simply send him home.

"Diagnosis is the key," continues Jitan. "We ruled out heart attack. There were no previously existing conditions such as diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure, a sedentary lifestyle, or previous heart disease. His symptoms were not typical of an aneurysm yet we suspected some problem with his heart."

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