Dave Tint’s return to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after a heart transplant redefines what persistence looks like. The brown belt’s story isn’t polished or romantic — it’s about surviving, adapting and refusing to be sidelined.
What began as an ordinary training session took a violent turn when Dave Tint became nauseous and dizzy after class.
“He said his head was fuzzy, so they thought, ‘Okay, he just needs to sit down for a sec,’”
recalled a training partner. But when Dave started nodding off in his car, friends rushed him to the hospital. Tests missed what was really happening.
Sent home, Dave’s condition spiraled.
“Once the meds wore off, he went back into the same thing. He was in the bathtub all night in anguish, nauseous, goes back to the hospital the next day.”
That’s when doctors discovered he’d suffered a heart attack the day before.
His health collapsed quickly. The defibrillator implanted in his chest went off twice while training.
“I felt like a horse kicking me in the stomach. That also happened on the mat. Second time I almost passed while training,”
he said. He was eventually approved for a heart transplant.
Even after surgery, obstacles kept coming. Cleveland Clinic refused to clear him to train again, calling jiu-jitsu too dangerous. Stanford saw it differently:
“Their main mission statement was to give me the life that I wanted to have, you know, and I wanted jiu-jitsu.”
Recovery was painful. Dave spent a week in agony and hallucinations, sinking to a place few talk about.
“I wouldn’t wish it upon any human being. It’s horrible and excruciating and you feel like you can’t do it and then it clears,”
he said.
Two months later, he was back moving — carefully, but back.
“Two months after the transplant, I was doing a move called the twister in my room with my friends.”
His teammates describe him as someone who
“embodies the heart of what it means to persevere and to survive both physically and mentally.”
Dave knows he’s not the same athlete he was before, but that’s not the point.
“I’m not what I once was, but I’m still coming back. That’s my contribution to myself and to jiu-jitsu — not giving up.”
