LOS ANGELES -- Tough former Marine Arpiar Missakian set a record by successfully undergoing an angioplasty at the age of 105, his doctor said.
Missakian, who has smoked since his teens and still lives on his own in Glendale, a city nine miles north of downtown Los Angeles, was recuperating at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where he was operated on after suffering a heart attack Wednesday."He's got good genes. He's in good condition," said Dr. Jivan Melikian.
The balloon procedure was needed to clear clogged arteries to the heart, Melikian said. Doctors implanted a metal mesh to help keep open a coronary vessel following the surgery.
Melikian consulted with Missakian's sons, Andrew and Michael Churukian, who decided to have Melikian operate rather than use medication that could cause kidney damage.
"He's not afraid to die. He's not afraid of anything. But his heart was going to go bad if left the way it was, and we preferred he stay a whole person," Andrew Churukian said.
Born in Kessab, Syria, in 1894, Missakian came to America in 1920 and worked in a steel mill in Pittsburgh before deciding to join the Marines, serving as a rifle instructor until illness forced him to be discharged, his son said.
Distributed by N.Y. Times News Service