A woman who was 'dead for 24 minutes' has miraculously lived to tell the story - and she's shared the unexpected thing that happened to her during the whole ordeal.
Lauren Canaday, from the US, was in her home when she experienced a sudden cardiac arrest, meaning a sudden loss of heart function.
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The Virginia resident - who is on medication for controlled epilepsy - suffered a grand mal seizure, a loss of consciousness with violent muscle contractions.
"My husband was across the hall and heard me say, 'oh s***,'" the 39-year-old told Newsweek.
"He rushed in to find me unconscious on the floor. I had stopped breathing and turned blue."
Her quick-thinking partner performed CPR for four minutes until emergency services arrived.
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According to the University of Michigan's Transplant Center, if a person who suffers a cardiac arrest doesn't receive oxygen (CPR), the chances of recovering past 15 minutes is highly unlikely.
After Canaday was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), doctors diagnosed her with myocarditis, the inflammation of the heart muscle (myocardium), which can reduce the heart's ability to pump blood.
Incredibly, after just nine days, she was discharged from the unit.
She was declared 'cognitively intact', with no visible brain damage on her MRI scans.
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Opening up on what it was like to be dead for 24 minutes, Canaday said: "I have this gut feeling that it was friendly and peaceful even though I can't report any shapes or personas or visions of that time.
"I feel like I dissolved, and it was just really nice.
"What I have is a strong sensation of peace about that time when I was out of consciousness."
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Eight months on from the incident, Canaday has been answering questions about her experience on Reddit.
"What is the thing that no one so far asked you about this experience that you feel like you would like to share?" one Redditor asked.
She replied: "Hmm, had to think about that for a second. I think people assume that when something so drastic happens there's like a social safety net for you, like you get special assistance.
"WRONG. I was just sent home while still in searing pain from ICD surgery and on 10 meds that dropped my blood pressure so low I had to go back to the ER."
She continued: "My husband and I were left to fend for ourselves. No social worker appeared to tell me how to apply for disability (and in the US this is hard to get for cardiac arrest, so hard I didn't even try despite being unable to work right now) and doctors only have 10 minutes with you at a time so I answered most of my own questions/needs by finding support from other survivors.
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"Which isn't easy to do b/c there aren't many of us. Also most research concerns heart attacks and other more common cardiac problems, not sudden cardiac arrest.
"It blows my mind that sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death and nobody really talks about it, prepares to do CPR or use AEDs as needed, or helps those who go through it. I'm doing what
"I can but I'm no expert. It just makes me sad. Sometimes it felt like the world preferred I hadn't come back b/c it definitely was not prepared to take care of me. I will do what I can in my small way to prevent others feeling like that, not sure what else to do."
According to the NHS, this is how to do CPR:
- Kneel at the side of the patient
- Put the heel of your hand in the centre of the chest with the other hand on top*
- Keep your arms straight and elbows locked
- Push down hard and fast – twice per second
- Let the chest come back up before you press down again
*Use one hand for a child and two fingers for a baby
Featured Image Credit: Lauren Canaday / Getty Stock Photo