Photos: Baby brought back to life after his heart fails

A 7-month-old baby boy from Alaska was near death from heart failure, but a new heart arrived in Seattle where he is hospitalized just in time to save his life.

According to KCPQ, Baby Lincoln has been waiting for a new heart since November — a heart that arrived in the last few minutes at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Just days before the heart transplant, the family didn’t think their baby would make it.

“It was tough because we knew Lincoln was facing an uphill battle. The last two days it’s fair to say that I kind of fell apart a little bit. You just feel this despair and emptiness, you know, like time’s up and my son is on his last leg,” said Rob Seay, Lincoln’s father.

Last summer, scans showed Lincoln had a rare birth defect that caused all of his organs to grow on the opposite side of his body. Doctors operated on the baby hours after his birth. They thought surgery would fix the problem but months later Lincoln’s heart started to fail.

The parents learned they could wait up to 90 days for a donor, but luckily a new heart arrived just in time to save the baby’s life — on day 89.

Lincoln’s mother said doctors were prepping him for surgery as his donor heart was on the way when he went into cardiac arrest on the table.

“They were doing chest compressions and, from what I understand, it wasn’t getting him anywhere and so because the heart was en route they went ahead and opened his chest and the surgeon reached in and hand-compressed his heart until the new heart arrived. So, when we say he was out of time, he was literally out of time,” said Mindy Seay, Lincoln’s mother.

Doctors say Lincoln will face some challenges as he recovers, but is expected to be OK.