A father who lost his two-year-old son to congenital heart disease before he could have a life-saving heart transplant took part in the British Heart Foundation’s 54-mile bike ride on Father’s Day – nearly 40 years after completing it for the first time – saying he did not know how much British Heart Foundation would mean to him “so many years on.” Andrew Pullen, 49, a school caretaker, and his wife, Alison, 50, fell pregnant with twins in 2001, but it was a complicated heterotopic pregnancy – one baby was growing in the fallopian tube so had to be surgically removed.
The other baby, Kieran, was “lucky enough” to survive, and was born on 25 November 2002 – however, he had tetralogy of fallot, a combination of four congenital heart defects that need surgery to treat “otherwise he would’ve died very quickly”. When Kieran was less than 24 hours old, he had his first open heart surgery, which Andrew said “felt impossible” at the time – the surgery was a success, but he had to have five heart surgeries to keep him strong enough to have a heart transplant.
Despite Kieran’s “little body” fighting “so hard throughout his life”, in the final surgery, Kieran never gained consciousness and, after a few days on life support, he passed away at two years old. The family “buried (their) little boy very close to home” so he is “always near” and continue to “miss him every single day.”
