When an aggressive strain of bacteria began destroying Christopher Scott’s heart, doctors didn’t hold out much hope the Toronto area resident would survive. But Scott is now on the road to recovery, thanks to a rarely used form of surgery, dubbed the UFO.

Earlier this year, while undergoing kidney dialysis Scott contracted an infection that sent bacteria into his bloodstream, where it settled into his heart and began destroying tissue.

By the time doctors were able to wheel Scott into surgery and open up his chest, the damage was more extensive than they suspected.

“It was certainly one of the worst – if not the worst – infections of the heart that I had ever seen,” cardiac surgeon Dr. Chris Feindel told CTV News Channel Friday.

Feindel, a heart surgeon at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre in Toronto had been called in to advise by Scott’s initial heart surgeon, Dr. Mitesh Badiwala.

Badiwala noticed that the infection had eaten away at two of Scott’s four valves that control the flow of blood through his heart. Without properly working valves, blood was leaking out of Scott’s heart and flowing back into his lungs, depriving his other organs of oxygen-rich blood.

But the infection had also destroyed the strong, fibrous framework around the damaged valves, making it impossible to attach new valves.

“It was a very nasty infection with very aggressive bacteria that chewed away the framework of his heart,” said Feindel.

Badiwala knew that Feindel had been trained in a rarely-performed surgery nicknamed the “UFO surgery.”

It got its name because “a lot of heart surgeons have never seen this particular surgery and are sort of befuddled by it,” Feindel explained.

The procedure involved stopping Scott’s heart and placing him on a heart/lung machine to take over his breathing and blood circulation. Feindel then began cutting out the infected valves and the damaged bits of framework.

“I had to remove all of the infection otherwise you will get re-infected,” he explained.

Next, he constructed a patch using “strips of bovine pericardium, which is the sac surrounding a cow’s heart,” he said. Onto this new patch, the surgeon sewed two new mechanical valves.

Feindel admits that “in all honesty,” he did not expect Scott to survive the surgery.

But he did, and after spending four months in hospital, and undergoing four more surgeries, Scott is now on the road to recovery.

Feindel says he was able to meet Scott after the surgery and was delighted to see him awake and talking, he said.