The Flying Tomato.

Shaun White is a pretty amazing athlete. The whole family stayed up late Tuesday night watching him come back from two not-so-great runs to claim his third gold medal in the halfpipe.

Although his flaming red hair has been tamed and he looks a little bit more professional than he did when he first broke onto the scene with the shaggy locks that earned him his nickname, he still gives off the aura of rebel, and like many of our idols, he may have some clay feet of his own, regarding sexual harassment allegations. While that certainly lessens his appeal to me as a role model to my children, he was there for me at a time that I really needed some inspiration.

I first learned about White in 2006, as he broke onto the Olympic scene earning his first gold medal in snowboarding.

The winter of 2006 was a terrible one for our family. Twenty weeks pregnant, we just found out that our baby had a severe congenital heart defect and would require several open-heart procedures when he was born, and even then, he might not survive.

The future seemed pretty bleak, as we listened to the statistics about his chances of survival (85 percent if he survived the first surgery, 95 percent if he survived the second, and 99 percent if he survived the third) and the odds that he would face other severe developmental and cognitive delays and challenges for the rest of his life.

As I sat, moping on the couch, having little enthusiasm for anything at all, especially sports, since we’d been told that our baby would never play sports, one of those human-interest pieces came on about White.

Turns out that White was born with a congenital heart defect, Tetralogy of Fallot, and required several open-heart surgeries to correct the problem. My interest piqued, I turned to Google for more information, and White’s story became an inspiration to me.

Although A’s heart defect is very different from White’s and required a different series of surgeries, they are both children who probably would have died years ago from a lack of options. Today, they are both thriving individuals, one of them with three Olympic gold medals and the other one taking on the challenge of sixth grade.

I was reminded of White’s triumph over congenital heart disease a few weeks ago during the Super Bowl, when he was featured in one of the commercials, shirtless, with his “zipper” scar clearly visible. I’m guessing that detail went unnoticed by most of the population, but I’m sure any other CHD families out there noticed it and appreciated it. Scars mean you lived.

February is CHD awareness month, with Valentine’s Day being the obvious tie-in to the heart. These days, about one in every 100 babies is born with some sort of congenital heart defect, ranging from mild, and possibly even undetected, to fatal. Until January 2006, I had no idea just how many things can go wrong with a fetal heart. I also had no idea how many medical professionals out there dedicate their lives to making sure that being born with CHD isn’t an automatic death sentence.

I currently have about 700 “friends” on Facebook. Based on the statistics, that means that there are at least seven people on that list who have a heart defect. My number is actually a little higher than that, because I run in the congenital heart defect survivor circles. So take a minute, and think about how many people you know, and about how many of them may have some sort of heart abnormality. It’s a pretty significant number.

Many of the advances that have been made in the past 20 to 30 years are enabling kids who are born with defects to not only live, but to live healthy, active lives. One of the problems facing cardiac kids these days is that there is a shortage of doctors who can continue to treat them as adults, because a generation ago, not enough kids survived to adulthood to need doctors who can treat adults with CHD. It’s a good problem to have, and one that is slowly, but surely, correcting itself.

One of my favorite things to hear from people about A is, “I thought he had something wrong with him” when they see him in action. When he does do activities, like swimming and wrestling, that require him to reveal his “zipper” and other scars that went along with surviving three open heart procedures, people’s eyes pop out.

That’s the thing about Heart Heroes, a lot of times, you can’t even tell who they are, but rest assured, they’re out there, bringing home the gold, getting their math homework done, and making a difference every single day.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.