National news crews don’t come to campus every day, so there was excitement in the air in late July, when Dr. John Torres, medical correspondent for NBC News, decided to cover a story about a new high-tech operating room at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Drs. Brian Scansen and Chris Orton from the cardiology and cardiac surgery team have been conducting procedures in this new, 1,400-square-foot space, with high-tech imaging displayed on high-definition monitors.

Torres — who worked as a 9 News medical expert in Denver from 2009 to 2017 and is now based in New York City — and medical and health producer Lauren Dunn first spent half a day in Centennial with Amy and Mark Hefestay, whose dog, Misty, was treated in April for a heart defect at CSU.

The team then came to CSU’s South Campus for the day, interviewing Scansen and filming part of a procedure in the surgical suite. They also filmed several dogs who had heart surgery to help illustrate the main story, spending a total of 12 hours capturing images in Colorado.

When it aired on Aug. 11, the segment was four minutes in length and included a live question & answer session with Dr. Torres and the news anchors on the Weekend TODAY show.

 At the end of the report Torres asked Amy and Mark, “Did you get your Misty back or did you get the Misty that was meant to be?”

“It’s a new and improved Misty,” Mark said.

“She’s definitely the Misty that she should have always been,” Amy added.

Watch the TV segment: https://col.st/KJn3U

Read the online story about CSU’s cardiology experts: https://col.st/ZS1s9