Sunday bash to raise money for Tyler Huston's surgery

An outdoor marketplace set up in the parking lot of The Zone Family Fun Center on Sunday is much more than a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

It’s an opportunity to help a 20-year-old Kalispell man raise the money he needs for life-saving heart surgery.

Tyler Huston has struggled with a heart problem since he had a heart attack at age 5. Doctors implanted a Medtronic pacemaker and two atrial leads at that time, but now one of the leads has failed and the other one has been compromised, according to Huston’s father, Hawk Huston.

Tyler’s condition, Brady Cardia Sic Sinus Syndrome, causes his heart rate to drop to levels too slow for him to function, and without the pacemaker his heart could fail.

“He’s young and in great shape,” Huston said about his son. “But even with the surgery there’s an 80 percent chance he won’t survive.”

Even though a surgeon in Denver has offered to do the surgery at no charge, the hospital is requiring $150,000 — including an $84,000 down payment — to cover its surgical costs, Huston said.

Because Tyler hasn’t been eligible for health insurance because of the heart condition, Huston paid for two previous surgeries out of pocket.

Now he’s sold all his belonging and is putting all of his effort into raising the money for his son’s surgery.

Huston and his son relocated from Wyoming to Kalispell to be closer to Tyler’s grandparents, Mike and Ginger Huston of Kila.

“He’s got a couple of months at best,” he said. “By midsummer Tyler will be” in desperate need of the surgery.