‘Your heart is working at 10%, it’s a miracle you’re alive’: Special Forces soldier Mile survived Košare and Paštrik, a routine check-up brought a shock!
Mile survived Košare, Paštrik, and the entire war in Kosovo. For two and a half decades, he served as a Special Forces soldier in the elite 72nd Special Operations Brigade, now part of the Serbian Army. In his life, nothing ever hurt him; he never needed a doctor. Marches of 50 km under full combat gear were a breeze; 60 push-ups in two minutes was child's play. Parachute jumps – life itself!
And then, at a routine check-up, he found out that he practically had no functioning heart at all! And that if he did not undergo a transplant, he would have to say goodbye to everything – his son, his wife, his life... But now he says to his new life: "Welcome!"
A relaxed and cheerful voice greets me on the other end of the line. That southern accent. Mile Antić has not lost the accent of his native Lebane, even though he set off for the military elite many years ago. He went through everything with the unit he joined, as he says, as a 22-year-old lad back in 1995.
“From the beginning to the end of the war, we were in Kosovo, during '98 and '99, at Košare and Paštrik... On the 17th and 18th of April '99 at Košare, many members of my unit were killed. Twelve or thirteen of us stayed to hold the position; we weren’t allowed to retreat. I managed to survive; I escaped the devil,” says Mile, who finds it hard to recount the horrors of that hell.
He is still in the intensive care unit at the Cardiac Surgery Clinic of the University Clinical Centre of Serbia, where he became their 60th patient to undergo a heart transplant.
“I never had a single health problem, not a single complaint in my life. Just before I went for that regular check-up, I passed the physical fitness tests with top marks! I did 60 push-ups in two minutes, 60 sit-ups, pull-ups, long jumps, rope climbing – all with flying colours. I never even got tired, I even went on 50-60 km marches with full equipment.”
However, in June 2020, an ECG at a routine check-up turned out badly. He wasn’t worried, thinking it was simply because he hadn’t slept well. But he had to go to the Military Medical Academy.
“That’s when the ball started rolling. Even the doctors couldn’t believe that my heart was only functioning at 10%! The doctor said it was so weak that it was a miracle I was alive at all! She asked if I had ever had a heart attack, chest pains... I had never felt any pain, I used to run four or five kilometres every day. And then she said: ‘Your heart is ripe for transplantation.’ “
Shock! They implanted a defibrillator, to restart his heart if it stopped. A handful of medication every day, and at the age of 47, he went into disability retirement.
But Mile still didn’t believe he needed a transplant. He kept telling himself: "There’s no way that’s happening!" They sent him to the Clinical Centre to Dr Emilija Nestorović, Head of the Heart Transplantation and Mechanical Heart Support Centre at the Cardiac Surgery Clinic of the UKCS
“I thought Dr Emilija would tell me I was healthy, because I was functioning, cheerful, able to run. However, when she did an ultrasound of the heart, she said: ‘We’re putting you on the transplant list.’ That’s when the light went out for me. For a month, I didn’t know where I was.”
Neither he, nor his family, nor his unit could believe it. No one could! Seemingly healthy and strong, he was now on the brink of life and death! And to make matters worse, the coronavirus pandemic was in full swing. In Serbia, transplants were hardly being performed.
“I thought to myself: ‘If it’s my time to die, I’ll die.’ I made my peace with it.”
He managed to hold on for a full five years without a call for a new heart.
“Every night I would go to bed thinking I wouldn’t wake up. I had a feeling I wouldn’t live to see this last Christmas.”
Then, at the end of March, the phone rang:
“I was at a friend’s house, we were distilling rakija, when Dr Emilija called – they had a potential donor. I felt sick with nerves; I didn’t sleep all night. Fear. I went to the clinic. But part of me thought about turning around and going home. When I thought it through, I realised I was in safe hands and that it was my only chance. They started the preparations, but the deceased’s family refused to give consent for organ donation. I thought my last chance in life was gone.”
But fate had other plans.
“Seven to ten days later, Dr Emilija called again: ‘Mile, we have a donor.’ It was 5 April, a Saturday. I arrived at the clinic, they did all the preparations, and on Sunday at half past nine in the morning, I was already on the operating table. I pulled through at the last moment. And I woke up feeling like I had been born again. Endless thanks to the donor’s family and the entire medical team, and the nurses,” says Mile with a smile.
Everything is different now. Now he is seriously planning for the future. Even though he is still in his hospital bed. From where he is sending photos, too – with his roommate, with Dr Emilija, with Dr Saša Kačar, who operated on him, and also photos from his Special Forces days...
“Next year I’m going to make my 90th parachute jump! Whether I’ll have to do it in tandem or manage solo, we’ll see what the doctors say. I have a new heart, I’m a new man, and I’m definitely jumping!”