35-year-old Victoria Thomas was having a normal day, going about her business. At a boot camp session at the gym, she suddenly did not feel well, and as soon as she relayed the information to a friend, she collapsed.
Emergency services stepped in and performed what can only be described as a miracle.
Keep reading to know more.
Victoria Thomas now 41, from Gloucester, UK, explains that while she was in the middle of a boot camp session at the gym, she began to feel unwell.
After lifting weights, she recalled how she felt dizzy, she felt as though her energy had ‘just drained from my body,’ going on to add that she “was also feeling slightly dizzy.”
She recalled that she had just relayed the information to a friend, when she “suddenly collapsed on the floor.” First responders arrived to the scene and it turned out she had had a cardiac arrest. Life-saving CPR was performed as Victoria’s heart had stopped beating.
Later she recalled the terrifying moment she died from her own perspective. She recalled that she ‘went black and there was nothing’.
The next moment, she remembers, “Then I became aware of looking down on my body. I was floating near the roof and was looking down at myself on the gym floor.”
“I didn’t see a light, or feel peaceful, I was just watching myself, and I could see some yellow machines around me,” she went on.
After 17 minutes of fighting for her, emergency services were able to get Victoria back.
“They never gave up on me,” she said of the incident. “The minutes ticked by, but they refused to stop trying. I was so young, fit and healthy and it had come completely out of the blue.”
After she came back, she spent three days in a coma, and was fitted with a defibrillator in case of another cardiac event.
however, her defibrillator saved her life a couple of times afterwards as her heart had issues repeatedly.
Victoria has no family history of heart problems and credits her defibrillator for helping her live a life as normal as possible.
“I went back to playing netball three weeks after it happened, with my defibrillator,” she says. “It was a shock whenever it went off, but it allowed me to carry on living my normal life, which I was so grateful for.”
In 2021, she became pregnant which put her heart under a lot of stress and she would as a result go into cardiac arrest ‘regularly.’
When she was 24 weeks along, doctors diagnosed her with Danon disease, a rare genetic disorder. As a result she delivered her baby via an emergency c-section at 30 weeks.
The condition is hereditary and can cause damage to the heart, muscles, retina, and brain. However, Victoria is the first person in her family to be diagnosed with the condition.
Her son is a healthy child but his birth has taken a toll on Victoria’s heart health and a checkup in 2022 revealed that her heart was only functioning at 11% which is usually indicative of end-of-life heart failure.
“I asked the doctors how long I had left and they told me I had just another couple of months. It was devastating. All I could think of was Tommy. I vowed I wouldn’t leave him,” she said.
In April 2021, she received a successful heart transplant and is now playing volleyball and basketball again and even competed in the World Transplant Games in Germany.
Tommy has also been declared safe as tests showed he does not have Danon disease like his mother.
Victoria is grateful for her life, saying, “I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at life, and to be a mum. It’s the greatest gift I could ever have asked for.”
Thankfully, things turned out well for this mother and her family. What do you think of her experience? Let us know in the comments section on Facebook.
