Wading River infant with rare heart condition needs a transplant

A Wading River family whose baby is suffering from a rare heart condition is hoping for a miracle.

Ruby Cotter, of Wading River, is less than 5 months old, but she's already spent half of her life in the hospital. Doctors diagnosed her with a heart condition that's rare in children. It's called dilated cardiomyopathy, which means her heart can't pump properly. She's already had surgery to install a Berlin heart, a device that is mechanically pumping her heart.

Ruby is now on the heart transplant list.

"That's what we were scared of the most, like our little girl is going to need a transplant," says Brian Cotter. "Once we were told it was happening we were like OK, now we are going to move forward with this and do what we need to do for her."

The Cotter family has been living at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital - New York-Presbyterian in Manhattan while they wait for a donor.

"We don't want to think about it, but we know when that day comes it's still going to be sad, it's not...it's happy but it's fear, it's every emotion you could possibly imagine," Ashley Cotter.
A family member has set up a GoFundMe page to help the Cotters with their bills and document Ruby's progress.