Abdi Avisai, a 9-year-old from Honduras, was diagnosed with a serious congenital heart defect that doctors in his country couldn’t repair. The defect, a hole where a wall should be between the upper heart chambers, causes the right side of the heart to become dilated. Untreated, the heart “could develop significant arrhythmias, and ultimately, right-sided heart failure,” says Abdi’s pediatric cardiologist Achiau Ludomirsky, MD, professor in the Department of Pediatrics.

With the help of nonprofit organization Project Kids Worldwide, Abdi traveled with his mother to Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in New York City where pediatric heart surgeon Ralph S. Mosca, MD, the George E. Reed Professor of Cardiac Surgery in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and professor in the Department of Pediatrics, was able to use some of Abdi’s own tissue from around his heart to repair the hole.

Less than a month after his surgery, Abdi is back in Honduras, happy and healthy.

Watch more on CBS New York.