Woman’s heart valves garner Guinness World Record status

SAN ANTONIO – Mary Ann Kozlowski had heart issues since she was a child when she developed rheumatic fever.

At 20 years old, the Pennsylvania native had her first open heart surgery, where two metal heart valves were placed in her heart.

Kozlowski remembers the doctor telling her she could go home. “And I said, By the way, how long are they going to last? Is there a warranty or something I can have for these things? And he goes, ‘50 years.’”

She remembers learning to live with the clicking in her new heart.

“You’re trying to sleep, and you get this ticking noise,” she said. “They were louder when I was younger, you know, like in my 20s and 30s. They would keep you up. And then when you go to the bathroom because you’re enclosed in the bathroom, you can hear the bells real loud.”

She now lives in San Antonio.

In June, she underwent a heart transplant, and the valves were removed from her heart.

KSAT met with her at her doctor’s office, where she was proudly holding her valves.

Cardiologist Philip Zinn became curious about her heart valves and encouraged her to participate in the Guinness Book Records.

“I have a lot of patients who’ve had valve replacement. None of them have had anywhere close to as long as Mary Ann’s,” Zinn said.

Metal valves generally last longer than tissue valves tend to, he says.

Zinn thinks her valves could have continued to work had it not been for her heart failure that led to a heart transplant.

“I would say very few people ever get to see the valves that they, you know, they had in their body for so many years that that’s very unusual,” he said. “She’s part of the Guinness World Records. And we were very excited about it.”

Kozlowski says she plans to make her valves into a jewelry piece that she can wear.