A woman has a near-death experience after essentially dying from broken heart syndrome, but is then being brought back to life.
"It seemed like an eternity that, all of a sudden, she just wasn't awake, they didn't have a heartbeat, they're bringing out the paddles and shocking her," Matt Collins said. "You see it in movies and TV 1,000 times, and to see it done to your wife in front of you is like a dream.""For 75 minutes, they shocked me 16 times, gave me 16 EPI injections, pretty much everything in the crash cart, and they did finally get me back," she said.
Danielle Collins was flown to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, where electrophysiologist Dr. Timm-Michael Dickfeld was on the team that treated her.But after several hours, Danielle Collins began to recover - with no brain damage.Immediate cardiac care was crucial to Danielle's survival. Dickfeld said her husband's decision to turn left toward the hospital and get immediate cardiac care was crucial.
So, what caused a 36-year-old healthy woman to have a near-fatal heart attack? Doctors theorize it's a case of "broken heart syndrome," a weakening of the heart muscle triggered by intense emotional stress. "The stress hormones that we have, we call them catecholamines, just a fancy word, they can affect the heart function and they can do this directly acting on the heart muscle cells, and they can also result in spasms, where the vessels that bring blood and oxygen to the heart will just start to clamp down," Dickfeld said.
Dickfeld implanted a defibrillator in Danielle Collins' chest to protect her from a co-occurring abnormal heart rhythm, but overall, her prognosis is excellent.Doctors emphasize the fact that Danielle Collins was at a hospital when her heart stopped, and she was able to receive immediate and sustained CPR likely saved her life and prevented brain damage.
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