Pregnant woman's final words before going into cardiac arrest mid-delivery helped doctors save two lives
Sometimes a turn of events has no other explanation than being a lucky coincidence. A mom, Kayleigh Summers, could attest to that after her heart stopped while giving birth to her baby. Summers and her husband were really excited to have their baby back in 2018. But when they got to know that Summers' blood pressure was really high, both of them were really worried. Labor had to be induced for Summers, but her heart stopped at one point. A conference at the hospital ended up saving her life, per PEOPLE.
The couple had gotten married in 2017 and were really excited to start their family. Summers was healthy throughout her pregnancy. But when she went to the doctor after her due date, the doctor found out that her blood pressure was really high and they would have to induce labor. "I unfortunately had high blood pressure readings at the beginning and the end of that appointment. And so I earned myself a ticket to triage in the hospital," Summers went on. They had to induce labor for two and a half days after that. The mom was ready to start pushing, but then she started feeling really unwell. "And the nurse said, 'Okay, that's pretty typical for transition. I'll get you a bag to be sick in.' And I said, 'No, something is very wrong.'"
"And as I said that, she went to glance at my vitals. And when she did that, I started screaming that something was wrong with my heart and seconds later, I went into cardiopulmonary arrest. So my heart stopped and I stopped breathing." The nurse called for code blue immediately after that. Fortunately, there was also a critical care conference happening on the same floor of the hospital. "So they took me across to the OR and had continued CPR on me and my son was delivered within six minutes of that code blue call, which is an incredible medical feat," Summers expressed. The baby, Callahan, was born through C-section and was unresponsive at the time of birth. He was resuscitated and taken to the NICU.
On the other hand, doctors continued to administer CPR to the mom. She had to stay at the hospital for over 14 days after that. She had suffered from amniotic fluid embolism, a childbirth complication that can be fatal for moms. "AFE typically happens really, really quickly, rapidly as it did in my case. So there are two phases that kind of make up an amniotic fluid embolism. One being that cardiopulmonary collapse, which I had already experienced and then something else called DIC, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy." It is a blood-clotting disorder that causes severe clotting and bleeding. The doctors prepared for it even before the mom started bleeding. She had to receive 140 units of blood through transfusion.
"I had a profound case of DIC. And so as my team was kind of putting the blood in as fast as they could, it was coming out just as fast and I unfortunately suffered a second cardiac arrest. So CPR was re-initiated." She eventually had to be transferred to a hospital with an ECMO, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. "It does both the job of the heart and the lungs in my case." As she wasn't recovering well on the machine, she was on Impella CP, a heart pump. The woman got better after that and could be taken off life support. Her son was with her at the hospital the whole 14 days and they met for a little bit every day. Summers felt that this prompted her to recover faster.