Mother Miraculously Wakes Up After Not Having a Pulse For 45 Minutes
After giving birth via cesarian section at Boca Raton Regional Hospital in September, Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro fell unconscious from a rare amniotic fluid embolism. Doctors attempted to revive her for three hours, and after 45 minutes without a pulse, her family was called into the operating room to say their goodbyes. Just before doctors planned to declare the mother dead, her heart started beating again.
"She spontaneously resuscitated," Boca Raton Regional Hospital spokesman Thomas Chakurda told ABC News. "We had brought the family in. We had announced to them that we had done all we could."
Doctors are calling Graupera-Cassimiro's survival a "miracle," and despite being without a pulse for 45 minutes, she has not suffered any neurological damage.
"Had [doctors] maybe stopped before the 45 minutes of compressions—I mean, I don't know. All I know is that I'm grateful to be here," Graupera-Cassimiro told the Sun Sentinel. "I don't know why I was given this opportunity, but I'm very grateful for it."
Health officials confirmed to the Associated Press that the amniotic fluid embolism—which occurs when amniotic fluid leaks into the blood stream, leading to blood clots and cardiac arrest—suffered by Graupera-Cassimiro is not completely understood by doctors and is usually fatal.
"Today she is the picture of health," Chakurda told the wire service.
