>> [background music] he was six weeks old whenwe were at a restaurant for dinner one night when he stopped breathing and turned blue on us. he spent 10 days in the hospital,then came home. two days later he ended up getting --turning blue again, stopped breathing on us, and prayed every night justhoping that he would pull through. [ music ] quite a few of the doctors said that he hada good chance of not leaving the hospital. it was the most devastating thingthat a parent could ever hear. at that point i think we were desperate,anything that would work to make him live,
we pretty much would take it and run with it. no other doctor knew howto do anything about it, so luckily doctor green came upand was able to do something. >> glenn green: tracheal malasia iscollapse of the windpipe that makes it so the child is unable to breathe out. it's fairly rare, about 1 in 2,200children has tracheal malasia. kaiba is one of those childrenthat had severe tracheal malasia. even with the best medicaltreatments that are available, he continued to have breathing difficulties,
and continued to have eventswhere he was unable to breathe. we obtained imaging of hisdefect with a ct scan. scott hollister instantly andrapidly went about designing a splint that could go and meet this need. this is the first time this procedurehas been done anywhere in the world. this is a model of kaiba's trachea and bronchi. the splint is designed to slip over thetop of the bronchus, just like this. >> scott hollister: this is reallythe first time i think it's been used on an emergency basis, where therewas no other treatment available.
so we get the plastic -- the biopolymer in apowder form with a very small particle size. we also have a computer file that contains theinformation we've designed into the device, essentially the geometryof the device, etcetera. it's a biopolymer, essentially a plasticthat's biocompatible, and you can use it in the body, and it reabsorbs over time. >> glenn green: kaiba wasbrought to the operating room, the splint was placed overthe top of the bronchus. this has a process of opening thebronchus up anteriorly and posteriorly to completely widen the bronchus.
it was amazing. as soon as the splint was put in, the lungsstarted going up and down for the first time. we knew that he would be okay. >> it means the world to me, justknowing that something actually worked, and was able to save our son's life.
3d printed house in china,it just means everything to me. >> we both -- when he gets olderhe can tell the people his story. it's all it's going to be is thestory about his life, how he made it, how he's doing, and how far he's going to go.
