In an operating room at Stamford Hospital, a soldier rescued a sailor.

The soldier is a heart surgeon and Army Reservist two generations younger than the sailor, who survived the bombs and bullets of D-Day during World War II.

There was a kind of recognition when they met.

Ted Guzda is tough - on June 6, 1944, he was 18 and a coxswain aboard the U.S. Navy's control ship for the attack on Omaha Beach. Guzda shot back while German fighter planes and troops entrenched on the French shore strafed and bombed the Allies, bodies filling the water. He survived not only the invasion of Normandy but the rest of the war, followed by 32 years on the beat with the Stamford Police Department.

But he was in fragile condition when his family brought him to the emergency room in mid-July. At 84, he was having another heart attack. He had a history of coronary artery disease and poor heart function. The drug he took to thin his blood and keep it flowing through his blocked arteries caused stomach bleeding. He was chronically enemic.

Dr. Alon Aharon is a surgeon at Stamford Hospital's new Heart & Vascular Institute, affiliated with Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Aharon also is an attending surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The army helped him cover his medical school loans.

He read an Advocate story, published on the D-Day anniversary three years ago, that Guzda's family brought to his hospital room. It was

about how Guzda and his childhood friend from Stamford, Willie Kesnick, watched each other's backs during the war.

"I understood what Mr. Guzda did, the risk he took serving his country," Aharon said.

He thought one good risk deserved another.

Heart surgery can be a numbers game. Medical professionals say that, because heart surgery so often decides between life and death, and survival rates are reported, some hospitals and surgeons are hesitant to take on high-risk patients to avoid low ratings.

Aharon knew that if Guzda did not have surgery, he would have continued bleeding internally, and almost certainly would have had another, most likely fatal, heart attack.

But the surgery would be difficult.

"We were check-mated," Aharon said.

He told Guzda's family he thought the heart could be repaired.

Guzda's son, Paul, a sergeant with the Stamford Police Department, had a talk with Aharon.

"I told him, 'You will hold my father's heart in your hands. I need you to convince me that you are the guy to do this job,' " said Paul Guzda, whose son, Tim, is The Advocate's design director. "He was very calm. He explained everything thoroughly. He said there's a chance your father could die, but I am going to try to save his life. I knew in my gut this was the guy."

The July 22 surgery started early in the morning and went into late afternoon. After Aharon and the surgical team opened Guzda's sternum, they harvested an artery from his chest and a vein from his leg. Then they built new blood vessels to allow unfettered flow to his heart. In a fairly new technique, Guzda's exposed heart was beating throughout.

An hour after Guzda went into intensive care to recover, he was back on the operating table to repair bleeding. Within a week, he was back on the table again - his sternum did not fuse and had to be rewired.

Guzda spent five weeks in the hospital and three weeks in a rehabilitation center, and was scheduled to return home today.

Heart surgery was a bigger battle than World War II, he said.

"Back then, I was a stupid young kid. I didn't think about things. Anyway, we had a job to do," Guzda said. "This time, I didn't know what was happening. But the doctor said, 'You're a fighter.' I said, 'Yeah. Why should I quit? I hustled all my life.'"

In the hospital, Aharon upheld a military code: Never leave a comrade on the battlefield.

"When it was all over, he stayed in that room," Ted Guzda said. "He didn't run away. He didn't say, 'My job is finished.'"

It seems that, in surgery, as in battle, risk has its place.

"As long as you know you're giving the guy a fair chance, you can live with yourself," Aharon said.

- Assistant City Editor Angela Carella can be reached at angela.carella@scni.com or 964-2296.