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She was clinically dead for 23 minutes
Marina had a heart attack during the birth of her son Lincoln. She was clinically dead for 23 minutes. Miraculously, she survived ...
Everything was normal until the 35th week of pregnancy. Marina experienced a "dream pregnancy, " as she tells the Australian Women's Weekly. But then everything changed suddenly.
The doctors diagnosed a preeclampsia. That means she had protein in her urine, water retention and elevated blood pressure. She came to the hospital where she was monitored. After a few days, the doctors decided that they would have to make an emergency C-section to rescue Marina and the baby.
When Marina was pre-assigned to the operation, she got the drug ranitidine. This is a standard drug that is often given and that is now even available over the counter in pharmacies. But Marina was allergic to the drug and had anaphylactic shock.
Anaphylactic shock on ranitidine is extremely rare. There are only three known cases in the world: one person died, one survived and one was a marina.
Marina's heart stopped beating. The doctors had to act immediately: they had to do the caesarean sections immediately in the non-sterile hospital room of Marina, because they had no time to bring them into a sterile environment. They had to get the baby out of Marina as soon as possible, because only then could they revive her.
Her husband Kris was in the room all the time. He had to watch everything.
Within four minutes, they brought Marina's son, little Lincoln, into the world. Then they started trying to revive Marina. But it was hopeless.
The doctors had already written off Marina, thinking she would not make it anymore. Kris called her brother, who had rushed to the hospital with his family so quickly that he arrived when Marina was still dead.
Marina's brother called her mother, who called Marina's father. Everyone thought Marina had finally left. They thought Marina was dead.
Marina was clinically dead for a full 23 minutes. Then she suddenly had a weak pulse again. The doctors told the family that Marina has a tiny chance of survival, but they should not be too hopeful. She had internal bleeding and was transferred to another hospital, where she was in an artificial coma for another five days.
Marina writes that she does not know much about the time in the new hospital. The memories are blurry. But she still remembers that someone had hung pictures of her baby on the lamp above her face. So she knew that Lincoln was born and that he was fine: "It was a comforting thought in a scary environment."
When she finally awoke, her memories were gone until two days before the heart attack. She had forgotten the birth and the time in the hospital. Her friends and family had to help her piece by piece for days to pick her memories together again.
It took days (for a young mother forever) until Marina could see her son. With all her ribs broken from the resuscitation, she could only hold him short and not satisfy him.
"It was a long, hard road, but I managed to stay optimistic knowing that the faster I get well, the sooner I can go home and be a mother to my beautiful boy."
Marina is very fortunate that she did not suffer permanent damage to the brain or heart. Lincoln is a perfectly healthy boy, even though he was born four weeks early and weighed only 2.4 kilograms. "My little one seems to know that I need some more recovery time, because he sleeps very well."
Marina concludes her report with an impressive conclusion: "He is a loveable boy, the light of my life and absolutely worth to die for."
