A 40-year-old Florida mother survives with no pulse for 45 minutes following a cesarean delivery of a healthy daughter.
Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro's was admitted to the Boca Raton Regional Hospital for a routine cesarean delivery. While performing the operation, the doctors found that Graupera-Cassimiro went unconscious after delivering her baby. Her heart suddenly stopped beating due to an unusual complication during childbirth on Sept. 23.
Doctors operating on her revealed that amniotic fluid from her womb made way to her bloodstream, which caused her heart to stop beating. The doctors tried to revive her but all their efforts were in vain as her heart did not beat for 45 minutes. The doctors called her family members to make them aware of the situation and were about to pronounce her dead when all of a sudden her heart started beating again without any apparent reason.
A previous study suggests that amniotic fluid embolism is a fatal medical event during childbirth. It occurs in 1 of 20,000 to 30,000 births in the U.S. and has a maternal mortality rate of 86 percent. The study also suggests that amniotic fluid embolism accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of all maternal deaths in the U.S.
Even though Graupera-Cassimiro's did not have a pulse for such a long time her brain remained undamaged. The woman woke up in intensive care and thought she woke up following the cesarian operation with no idea of what had happened. She thought that something has gone wrong as when she opened her eyes her family was crying and relatives had come over from Miami.
"There's very few things in medicine that I've seen, working in the trauma center myself and doing all the things that I do, that really were either unexplainable or miraculous," says Dr. Anthony Dardano, president of the hospital's medical staff. "And when I heard this story, that was the first thing that came to my mind."
Graupera-Cassimiro's was taken off from all life support systems on Sept. 24 and within a few days she was also sent back home. The woman says that she is fortunate to be alive after such a medical complication.
Graupera-Cassimiro also revealed that she had a dream in which she met the spirit of her dead father who told her it is not her time.
