Fighter Survives Heart Surgery at 19, Returns to UFC Ring

At 19 years old, Modestas Bukauskas watched doctors thread wires through his body and into his heart while he stayed conscious for nearly five hours of surgery. The Lithuanian-British athlete had experienced dangerous heart palpitations since childhood, but he refused to let the condition end his dream of becoming a UFC fighter.

"They literally had wires going up my groin into my heart and they were trying to induce palpitations," Bukauskas tells BBC Sport. "Then they had to basically burn off an external circuit in my heart."

The surgery worked, and Bukauskas threw himself into mixed martial arts training with renewed determination. His father Gintas, a former No Holds Barred champion in the Soviet Union, had been training him since age five in their living room while other kids played outside.

By the time he reached the UFC, Bukauskas had become a British kickboxing champion with a 10-2 record. But success didn't come easy: he lost three fights in a row before blowing out his knee in 2021.

The UFC cut him from their roster. Bukauskas spent weeks alone in his room with his knee in a cast, drinking himself to sleep each night.

"There was a lot of times where it was very painful," he admits. "It was my way of escaping the real world."

He hid the drinking from his father and struggled through the darkest period of his life. But the same mental toughness that got him through heart surgery as a teenager eventually pulled him through.

Why This Inspires

Bukauskas' journey shows what's possible when you refuse to give up on yourself. In just 14 months, he recovered from the knee injury that ended his UFC contract and fought his way back into the organization.

Since returning in 2023, he's won six of seven fights, including four victories in a row. Now 31, Bukauskas faces Russian veteran Nikita Krylov at UFC 324 this Saturday in Las Vegas, with a chance to break into the top 15 rankings.

"It probably would have broken many people," Bukauskas says of his injury ordeal. "My whole life people have kind of been shoving me off to the side, so I just kept using that as fuel."

His father still coaches him from the corner, the same angel on his shoulder who started this journey in a British living room when Bukauskas was just five years old. Together, they're proving that setbacks are just setups for incredible comebacks.