Mum who suffered 'widowmaker' heart attack explained what it felt like with 'out-of-body experience'
A US mum who experienced a 'widowmaker' heart attack has revealed what she saw during her near-death-experience.
Jenna Tanner was at her home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, when she started to feel chest pains and breathlessness for a several days.
The 49-year-old initially thought her symptoms were a result of the flu because her three children had recently recovered from the illness.
While alone at home on 9 March, 2022, Jenna lost consciousness and had a type of cardiac arrest known as a 'widowmaker', meaning that her left anterior descending artery became completely blocked.
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"It felt like an elephant had walked in and sat on my chest, and I knew instantly that I was having a heart attack," she said.
With her phone in another room, Jenna spent two hours drifting in and out of consciousness.
Thankfully, she was able to call her husband and 911, before collapsing when the medics arrived. She then started to have an out-of-body experience, which she still remembers to this day.
Describing it like 'floating through space', the stay-at-home mum said: "I was getting closer to what I would describe as a nebula.
"There was a big cloud of colors moving that were changing. Everything was vivid stars. I was just floating peacefully."
"Not once did I remember or relive any bad parts of life," she further recalled. "Everything that I thought about was the connections I had made with people or places while I was alive. It was just all the good stuff."
Referred to as a 'miracle patient' by doctors, a widowmaker heart attack has a survival rate of just 12 percent if it happens outside a hospital.
Her cardiologist said: "In a 20-year career and over 4,000 surgeries, I've never seen anything like this. I didn't even know people could survive this."
Jenna further revealed that the fire department even received an award for how quickly they responded to her call, which she says was 'under 13 minutes'.
"I got to go to their awards banquet the next year for that." she added.
After managing to overcome such a life-threatening incident, doctors implanted a heart pump and placed a stent in her main artery, a procedure usually requiring bypass surgery.
After ten days in the hospital, six of them in intensive care, Jenna incredibly walking out on her own, without the walker or rehabilitation doctors.
Her recovery, however, was far from easy, having to take 13 new medications, gaining 40 pounds - which she has since lost - and dealing with PTSD.
Jenna is now writing a memoir about her experience, adding: "Life is really good right now, thankfully."
Anish Vij