Utah woman suffers cardiac arrest due to tear in artery while on treadmill

A woman in Utah had a cardiac arrest while working out on a treadmill at home. Justine Carter had a near-fatal emergency in May last year and is now speaking about the medical complication.

Doctors say that Justine suffered a tear in an artery in her heart, called spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), a condition that mostly affects women in their 40s and 50s, according to the Mayo Clinic. 

Blood flow to the heart either stops or slows down, “causing a heart attack, heart rhythm problems or sudden death.” Such patients don’t have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes”, and there is no known cause for it either. 

The mother of two was on the treadmill, and 12 minutes later started feeling shortness of breath, she told Fox News. Soon there was a shooting pain from her back to her chest.

She had been recording herself for social media and could be seen breathless. Justine says, “That was not a good idea. I should have listened to my body” and “Ooh, I don’t feel good.”

She then called her husband, Kevin, and he said he could hear her vomiting. Her voice suddenly stopped and their four-year-old son then answered him, saying she was sleeping. 

Kevin rushed home along with his mother Teresa and they found Justine having a seizure in the bathroom. Her heart stopped and Teresa, a nurse with HCA Healthcare’s Mountain View Hospital in Payson, gave her CPR for 25 minutes. 

She was quickly taken to the hospital by the paramedics. 

Describing what had happened to her, Teresa told Fox News, “She had what we call ‘tombstone rhythm’ on the monitor, which tells us she was having a heart attack, and that her heart muscle was not getting enough oxygen.”

She suffered a second heart attack a week later as the tear grew larger. This time she underwent open-heart surgery to repair the tear. Justine is recovering well, and along with her mother-in-law, talking about the importance of knowing CPR.