151 a surgeon was recently able to save an infants life thanks in part to a lowcost virtual reality device that allowed him to map out the baby girls unique heart dr redmond burke director of cardiovascular surgery for the heart program at the nicklaus childrens hospital in miami used a program for google cardboard that created a virtual model to help him prep for difficult surgery teegan lexcen born in august 2015 was not expected to survive due to defects with her heart and because she had only one lung when she was born teegans family members from chaska minnesota were desperate to get their daughter help especially after she managed to survive a few months they then got in touch with the team at the nicklaus childrens hospital who found they might be able to operate on her and help her survive 3d printer used to custom design pacemakers 3d printing goes beyond the lab toddler with facial deformity says surgery will make her feel pretty burke said seeing teegan next to her healthy identical twin sister made him want to try to save her life three months after teegan and her sister rachel were born teegan was much smaller and weaker than her robust and healthy sister he said i was thinking weve got to do something weve got to give them hope burke told abc news of teegans parents if theyre going to trust us with their babys life we were going to honor their trust and do the best thing possible but teegan had many severe defects including a significantly underdeveloped heart and a blockage of the aortic arch resulting in a decrease of blood to the main conduit eventually the team at nicklaus childrens hospital figured out a way to translate the ct scans of teegans heart into a 3d image that burke could look at through google cardboard he said the device uses cardboard over an iphone screen and acts as a virtual reality viewer that allows a viewer to be immersed in an image i put it up to my eyes and i thought this is one of those its an epiphany burke said of being able to see the heart in a 3d virtual image it changes when you see something in a different way it gave me the information in my hands on demand teegans parents said they were overjoyed after spending months thinking their daughter wasnt going to survive we lived thinking that any time she went to sleep she might not wake up again teegans mother cassidy lexcen said on the nicklaus childrens hospital website we did everything we could to make sure she never cried because we were afraid the strain might be too much for her struggling heart burke worked with multiple doctors to develop how to approach the surgery step by step often turning to the google cardboard for reference with congenital heart defect operations no heart is the same burke said