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I'm guessing by "tear" he had a dissection-- very different from an aneurysm or even rupture.
It sounds like a very nice outcome, but not unusual.
People who have aortic tears, aneurysms, ruptures, etc often have bad underlying cardiovascular disease going in, which is why their periop complication rate is so high-- MI's, strokes, kidney failure, etc.
It sounds as though in this case, the patient may have been fairly healthy going in, and so I would expect a good outcome like this.
People in their 60s can run the gamut from extremely healthy to train wrecks-- you really have to get a good sense of their "physiologic age", and treat them as such
He might have had a descending aortic dissection, which can transiently cut off the blood flow to the renal arteries.
Fix the dissection, and the kidneys should recover.
The pneumonia isn't usually an issue, except maybe getting him off the vent postop. As mentioned, it could have easily been atelectasis, pulmonary congestion, etc.
Sounds like he received excellent, rapid, aggressive care.
Modern medicine is a marvel when it goes right like this.
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