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King Cardiac Foundation Is All Heart

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By JOYCE McKENZIE

jmckenzie@tampatrib.com

Published: March 4, 2009

UNIVERSITY AREA - Two years ago Laszlo Silagyi was diagnosed with heart disease and told he was in dire need of microvalve replacement surgery.

Unfortunately, the 48-year-old Bradenton resident, who operates a small business with his wife, Noemi, has no health insurance.

"I've tried everything I possibly could - numerous foundations, the American Heart Association and Duke University, who told me 'We can do the surgery but don't come until you have $150,000 to spend,'

" Noemi said.

In her desperation to find help for her husband, she even wrote to Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. Her pleas for help, however, went unanswered.

"In the meantime, our two little boys, ages 5 and 6, kept asking, 'When will they fix Daddy's broken heart?'

" she said.

They received the answer just one day after a customer of Noemi's told her about an article she read about the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides funds for under- and noninsured heart patients in need of treatment.
Noemi immediately went to the foundation's Web site and inquired about the possibility of a donation for Laszlo's surgery, a need she said was crucial to his survival.

The extraordinary news arrived the following morning.

"In one day they took care of what I had tried to do for over a year," she said. "Just one week and a day after asking them for help, my husband was admitted to Pepin Heart Hospital. It's just unbelievable."
Neomi and Wayne "Ace" Douchet, 49, who recently underwent double-bypass heart surgery at the hospital in December with the financial aid of the foundation, were Pepin's guests on Feb. 20 at a luncheon honoring Larry King, a 1987 quintuple-bypass heart surgery survivor who founded the organization in 1988.

"It started with a group of my friends sitting around in a restaurant and someone asking me what it the surgery cost. It got me to thinking about what people without health insurance are faced with when they need life-saving heart surgery," said King, whose wife, Shawn, is chairwoman and his eldest son, Larry Jr., is president of the foundation.

The elder King, also the longtime host of CNN's "Larry King Live" talk show, donates royalties from his book "Taking on Heart Disease" and the soon-to-be- published "My Remarkable Journey" to the organization. Profits from the foundation's annual celebrity galas also are donated to the cause.

"The proceeds we've raised are $2 million to $3 million so far and we've helped over 800 people," he said. "Our goal is to save a heart a day, and there is nothing that brings more joy than helping to save people's lives."
Larry King Jr. of Lutz, who earlier that day took his dad to the Hillel School, a private Jewish education center in Carrollwood where his three children are enrolled and whose students and their families raised more than $10,000 for the foundation, said seeing patients' lives change for the better because of the foundation is an "awesome" experience.

"It's sometimes very emotional, and it's been very meaningful for me," he said.

Brigitte Shaw, Pepin's chief executive officer, said the hospital is proud to be a partner with the foundation, and she is pleased to have Larry King Jr. serving on its advisory board.

"It's nice to do philanthropic things for people in the community and work at a place where the poorest guy and the richest guy are treated the same," said Mark Bloom, Pepin's chief of cardiac surgery.

Following the luncheon, Larry King and his eldest son met Laszlo Silagyi, whose heart surgery was on Feb. 23.

Reporter Joyce McKenzie can be reached at (813) 865-4849.

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