A mum has revealed how she “died and came back to life” after a suspected ectopic pregnancy.
Hinda Abrahams went to hospital expecting doctors to perform a simple laparoscopic procedure after a suspected ectopic pregnancy.
Instead, the 28-year-old woke up in intensive care to learn that her heart had stopped twice during the procedure due to an allergic reaction to general anaesthesia, leaving her ‘dead’ for 20 seconds.
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“When I woke up, I immediately recognised an ICU room, so my first thought was my blood pressure had dropped or something,” Hinda, a teacher from Kansas, USA, told Need To Know.
“Then I saw the clock above the nurses head showing 4pm, meaning it had been five hours since they started the operation and I was only just waking up.
“I knew it wasn’t good.”
The teacher’s terrifying ordeal began on 30 January, when Hinda began experiencing abdominal pain and spotting.
She had been taking birth control pills without missing any doses and had even had a normal period just two weeks earlier.
After four days of pain and light bleeding, her husband, Theodore, 35, urged her to go to the hospital.
Mum-of-two Hinda said: “I tried to think of what they would look for at the hospital and the first thought that popped into my head was an ectopic pregnancy because I’d read stories of similar, one-sided pain and spotting.
Despite not missing a single dose of her birth control pill and still breastfeeding her baby, she was “shocked” to learn it was positive.
Hinda said: “I was panicking but my husband, who is my hero, was very calm and immediately took charge, and had someone come stay with the kids so he could take me to the hospital.
“By the time I saw the positive pregnancy, I immediately knew it must be ectopic.
“There was no moment of ‘wow, I’m pregnant’ because I’d been in so much pain for four days.
“The positive pregnancy test was really just an answer in the right direction.”
An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes.
At the hospital, doctors confirmed she was miscarrying – and also saw a mass near her left ovary.
They scheduled surgery to investigate and remove the suspected ectopic pregnancy.
The procedure was expected to take around 45 minutes.
But less than 20 minutes after Hinda was taken into surgery, doctors called her husband into a waiting room.
The obstetrician told him that his wife’s heart had stopped twice during the operation due to an anaphylactic allergic reaction to the general anaesthesia.
Hinda said: “When this first happened I thought it was like the movies where CPR always works and the person gets up and goes back to normal.
“I didn’t know that CPR only has at best a 40% survival rate when done in the best medical setting.
“On the street, CPR is only 10% successful.
“Even still, of those who survive CPR enough to get their heart beating again, many of them don’t survive the next two to three days from the complications.
“Of those who survive the pneumonia, many of them have a permanent disability or brain damage from oxygen deprivation.
“The fact that I not only survived it, but don’t have any serious life altering injury from it, is a true miracle and I thank God for it.”
When he arrived at the ICU, she was still unconscious and surrounded by staff working to stabilise her.
Hinda woke up hours later to find herself intubated and unable to breathe on her own.
She was connected to multiple IV lines, had a catheter in place, and had a central line stitched into her neck delivering emergency medication.
Her sternum ached from chest compressions during CPR.
Hinda spent the next three days in intensive care.
She had also developed pneumonia from being intubated and doctors observed signs of heart failure caused by the trauma of the cardiac arrest.
Doctors don’t believe she had any underlying heart condition prior to the incident.
Despite the ordeal, she slowly began to recover.
Now recovering at home, Hinda says she still finds it hard to believe what happened.
More than a week after receiving CPR, her sternum is still sore, though she was fortunate not to suffer broken ribs.
Hinda added: “I can’t believe it all happened – who needs to be resuscitated at 28 years old?
“I know I got super lucky with all of this.
“Not just getting another chance at life, but the fact that I don’t have any permanent injuries or didn’t end up in a coma is a straight-up miracle.
“I also want to raise awareness about the importance of not declining pregnancy tests at hospitals.
“Someone like me who was on birth control and had a period two weeks earlier would understandably think it’s silly to take a pregnancy test.
“If my tube with the ectopic had been rupturing, then knowing it was a pregnancy would have saved my life.”
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