A woman who almost died after haemorrhaging a month after welcoming her first child has shared what her near death experience was like – including “movie-like” moment.
Samantha Mangilit had had a relatively normal pregnancy and birth experience with her daughter Zuma, but four weeks after her birth, experienced a sudden haemorrhage that caused her to almost entirely bleed out.
The 29-year-old lost more than four litres of blood – almost the entire amount in her body – and felt herself “dying”.
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Luckily, Samantha was saved by a team of doctors – but not before the new mum got a glimpse of what death may look like.
“I saw my husband crying in the hospital and then everything started to fade to black – it was like a movie,” the artist, from Orlando, Florida, told Need To Know.
“I was surrounded by doctors and nurses and commotion as they rushed me into surgery, and didn’t hear anything.
“It was silent and dark and I was just simply at peace.
“I didn’t feel anything, and in my mind, I knew that I was dying, but I wasn’t scared.
“It felt like I was just going to sleep.”
Samantha’s ordeal came about after she gave birth to Zuma in October 2024.
Her pregnancy and much of her labour had been normal, but towards the end she needed to have an emergency caesarean as her daughter’s heart rate began to drop.
After the surgery, Samantha started to haemorrhage and lost a small amount of blood, but was otherwise well.
Four weeks later, after she and her husband had celebrated the anniversary of their first date, she woke up in a terrifying state.
She said: “I woke up at 5am to a wet, gushing feeling.
“I looked down and was absolutely covered in blood.
“My shorts and legs were soaked, and the blood had also soaked through my sheets, mattress topper, and mattress.
“Because I had already haemorrhaged in the hospital, I knew what was happening.
“This time was just so much worse.”
Lightheaded from the blood loss, she sat on the toilet while she decided what to do.
Samantha said: “The blood pouring out of me on the toilet sounded like a water pouring out of a faucet into a bathtub – it was nonstop and absolutely gushing.
“Then I fainted.”
She came to as she was being rushed into hospital by paramedics.
Samantha added: “I ended up losing over four litres of blood.
“It’s no exaggeration to say I almost completely bled out.
“I essentially lost all the blood in my body and doctors couldn’t get the bleeding to stop.”
She received multiple blood transfusions, platelet and plasma, and iron transfusions while falling in and out of consciousness.
Samantha said: “During my spurts of consciousness, I feel like I was acting normally/talking normally and communicating with my husband, who was in the room with me, and the many nurses and doctors in the room at all times.
“Apparently, at some point, the bleeding got worse and I began to crash.
“My pulse dropped down to 52, my haemoglobin level dropped to a three, a crash cart was brought out, and I just knew that I was dying.
“In an awake state during this, I shouted out to my husband that I loved him more than anything and to take care of our new baby.”
That was the moment she felt herself ‘dying’ – with the movie-like fading of her vision to darkness.
Samantha added: “I wish I had a great story about seeing the light or meeting up with a deceased family member, but it was just dark and not scary.”
While she was out of it, doctors had wheeled her into surgery, where a specialist team found she had an embolism [blockage in a blood vessel] and an aneurysm in her right uterine artery, causing the blood loss.
Surgeons completed a Bilateral Uterine Artery Embolism to reduce blood flow, with another doctor on standby in case an emergency hysterectomy needed to be performed in order to save her life – something Samantha and her husband, Louie, wanted to avoid in order to have more children in the future.
Luckily, the four-hour-long procedure proved successful and, eventually, the bleeding ceased – using an absorbable gelatin sponge product to act as a “cork” in her artery.
Samantha spent a week in the ICU following that, missing some of the early days of her daughter’s life as she slowly recovered from the ordeal.
She said: “Once I was aware enough to realize that I was in the ICU, and that my daughter wasn’t with me, it was so sad.
“She was only four weeks old and we both needed each other – we were still in the new mommy/baby phase and we were bonding.
“I just wanted to see her and hold her.
“I kept asking my husband to bring her to see me, but we decided together that she shouldn’t be coming to the ICU around all those germs.
“Coming home was the best feeling ever.
“I just layed in bed with Zuma and it felt like my whole world was in my arms.”
Doctors found that Samantha had what is known as a pseudoaneurysm – a localised collection of blood outside of the blood vessel, caused by a leak – which, given the close proximity to her caesarean, is considered a delayed postpartum haemorrhage.
Doctors told her she is the fifth recorded case ever with the diagnosis.
While her recovery has been strong and swift, Samantha struggled to come to terms with the trauma upon her return to everyday life.
She said: “I felt extremely numb.
“I went through this horrible, traumatic experience, but didn’t have any physical or obvious looking ailments.
“I wasn’t in a cast, I wasn’t limping, it was all internal.
“I’d had a baby, was still in recovery from having her, and then nearly died, had surgery, and spent time in the ICU.
“Then I came home and it was as if nothing happened.
“The PTSD is so real and so prevalent.
“For the first three months after, I could barely eat, I wasn’t sleeping and had nightmares, and I couldn’t be ‘too far’ from the hospital because I was worried about bleeding again.
“I cried every day and had multiple panic attacks and anxiety attacks daily, and felt phantom bleeding.
“I was always checking to make sure I wasn’t bleeding again.”
In the months that followed, Samantha had several scans to confirm no further aneurysms in the uterus, and after six months her blood count returned to normal.
But the trauma has left her with concerns over future pregnancies.
She said: “I can’t help but wonder if this can happen again to me.
“I want more babies, and because my case was so rare, I don’t really have answers.
“Could this happen to me again? Yes.
“Could this happen during a future pregnancy? Yes.
“Was this aneurysm brought on because of my pregnancy? Nobody knows.
“Aneurysms are spontaneous bleeds, and nothing really causes them.
“I was so incredibly lucky that this happened in the middle of the night when my husband was home, because if I was alone, odds are that I would have bled out and died alone on my bathroom floor.”
After all she has been through, the artist has a whole new appreciation for life that she is taking with her into the future.
She added: “I know it is so cliche, but this gave me a new perspective on life.
“I feel like I am a lot more chill, and things really don’t bother me as much, because I know what could have been.
“So what if I’m stuck in traffic or if my phone dies – I’m alive!
“At 29 years old, my husband was nearly left without a wife and my four-week-old baby was nearly left without her mommy.
“Minor inconveniences that used to ruin my whole day are so not a big deal to me now.
“I also feel so grateful every single day and for the minor things that most people take for granted.”
