The friendship of two UT Dallas juniors was reportedly first forged beating the odds in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Health in Dallas.
Tate Lewis and Seth Rippentrop have lived a parallel journey that began with being born with the same life-threatening condition, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, in August 2002, NBC 5 DFW reported.
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome is a congenital defect in which the left side of a baby’s heart forms incorrectly in the womb, according to the CDC. Various structures tend to be underdeveloped, resulting in a poor supply of oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body.
Doctors gave both Lewis and Rippentrop a 40% chance of survival. While the odds were against them, their determination never wavered. Both young men underwent multiple surgeries and specialized medical care at Children’s Health, which was named the nation’s best children’s hospital for cardiology and heart surgery by U.S. News & World Report in 2023.
“I’ve had five open heart surgeries, I’ve had a stroke, paralyzed vocal cord, I’ve been [air-lifted] but at no point was I going to say, ‘OK, this is my life,’” Lewis told NBC 5.
Although they did not mean to go to the same university or plan on rooming together, things worked out that way.
“Felt like this has been a work in progress our whole lives,” Lewis said.
Now, in their junior year of college, they have each found a subject they are passionate about. For Lewis, it is golf, while Rippentrop is enamored with astrophysics.
Although their interests diverge, their approach to life remains remarkably similar — and that is to look at each day with gratitude.
“I think it’s easy to get caught up with what’s a guarantee and what’s not and just the uncertainty about the future, but one — no one really has a guarantee on anything, and two –- we’re both already 21,” Rippentrop said, per NBC 5. “We weren’t expected to live past birth. Every day we have is a gift from God. We’ve already defied so many odds — how many more will we defy?”
