By Tiffany Williams –
In North Andover, Massachusetts, Sudeep Chawla thought he had a sore shoulder.
It was one of those aches you brush off. A strange pain near his shoulder blade one evening. Then a bout of vomiting. Maybe something he ate. Maybe nothing at all.
But by the next morning, the discomfort lingered — and that instinct to seek care likely saved the 40-year-old chiropractor’s life.
What started as a simple trip to urgent care turned into something far more urgent. Doctors quickly realized this was not indigestion. Chawla was rushed by ambulance to Lawrence Hospital, part of Merrimack Health.
There, doctors diagnosed him with a widow maker heart attack — a severe form of heart attack that only about 12% of patients survive.
The phrase alone is chilling. Widow maker. It refers to a complete blockage in the left anterior descending artery, often sudden and often deadly. Survival depends on speed — minutes matter.
At Lawrence Hospital, speed took over.
Chawla received a diagnostic electrocardiogram, or EKG, and was immediately transferred to the cardiac catheterization lab. Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Gerard Daly found a complete blockage in Chawla’s left anterior descending artery.
Within just 26 minutes of identifying the issue, Daly and the team had cleared the blockage and placed a stent.
From the moment Chawla arrived at the hospital to when the balloon inflated in his artery — known as “door-to-balloon time” — only 80 minutes had passed. The national target is under 90 minutes, and shorter times mean better outcomes.
In heart attack care, that clock is everything.
“It took everyone in our chain to make this work — from the Emergency Center recognizing that he needs an EKG to our Cath Lab team performing the procedure,” Dr. Daly said.
The chain he describes isn’t just equipment and hallways. It’s people. A nurse recognizing something unusual. A technician preparing a room. A cardiologist ready to act without hesitation.
Chawla remembers that room.
“I’ve had surgeries in Boston, and we had our kids at other hospitals, and this Merrimack Health team is phenomenal – truly awesome,” Chawla said.
It’s not the kind of praise you expect in the middle of a medical crisis. But for him, it was more than technical skill. It was how it felt — the urgency, the confidence, even a sense of celebration once the blockage was cleared.
After a short stay in the Intensive Care Unit and follow-up care with Daly and fellow cardiologist Dr. Sunit Mukherjee, Chawla returned home with a recovery plan that included cardiac rehab.
Today, he’s back to work. Back to adjusting spines. Back to family life. Back to normal — or at least a new version of it, with a renewed sense of gratitude.
For Merrimack Health’s Lawrence Hospital, his story is one of many.
In 2025, the hospital was once again named a HeartCARE Center: National Distinction of Excellence by the American College of Cardiology for its high-quality, patient-centered cardiovascular care. It marked the eighth consecutive year the hospital earned that distinction.
Lawrence Hospital was the first program in Massachusetts to be accredited by the American College of Cardiology, and one of the first four hospitals nationwide to receive the HeartCARE designation when it was launched in 2018.
The hospital has also achieved additional accreditations from the American College of Cardiology, including Cardiac Cath Lab with PCI Accreditation, Chest Pain Accreditation with Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, and Heart Failure Accreditation.
Behind those designations are services that include cardiac diagnostics, emergency treatment of heart attacks and conditions, cardiac catheterizations, primary angioplasty, Impella left ventricular devices, congestive heart failure management, and complex and minimally invasive vascular surgery.
But on a recent morning in North Andover, none of those titles were what mattered most.
What mattered was that a man listened to his body.
What mattered was that an urgent care team moved quickly.
What mattered was that an ambulance arrived in time.
What mattered was that, 80 minutes after walking through hospital doors, a blocked artery was open again.
Chawla’s life didn’t change in some dramatic, cinematic moment. It changed in small decisions — deciding to go to urgent care, deciding not to wait, deciding to act.
A strange pain near the shoulder blade. A night of uncertainty. A morning that could have gone differently.
Instead, it became a reminder.
Sometimes survival isn’t about heroics. It’s about coordination. Preparation. Experience. And a chain of people who know exactly what to do when seconds count.
In North Andover, that chain held.
And today, Sudeep Chawla is still here to tell the story.