When Stefani Anderson went on a dinner date with a potential new partner, she never expected that her heart would literally explode.
The 39-year-old met up with a man she was seeing at The Cheesecake Factory in Salt Lake City, Utah, when she began experiencing intense pain in her jaw.
She initially brushed it off but as the pair waited on their food arriving the pain began spreading to her collarbone, growing worse by the minute.
The mom-of-three was writhing in agony when her date rang the emergency services for help.
Paramedics rushed her to hospital where doctors discovered that the biggest artery from the heart had ruptured, causing the blood to stop pumping around her body.
She was rushed in for emergency open-heart surgery, which saw doctors remove part of the damaged blood vessel and replace it with a synthetic tube.
Ms Anderson said she couldn’t believe how her date unfolded, and she said the first moment she realized something was wrong was when she was sat at the table and started experiencing ‘really bad jaw pain and it was very hard to swallow’.
She continued: ‘It was mainly just pain in my jaw and collarbone area. I’d ordered a Coke and just taken three sips, and the jaw pain had just got really intense.
When Stefani Anderson went on a dinner date, she never expected that her heart would literally explode, turning it into a life-or-death situation
Ms Anderson was told about the aneurysm in her heart 10 years prior but doctors were regularly monitoring it
‘I didn’t know what was causing the pain. Within minutes, it went from mild jaw pain to really intense. I thought it could be lock-jaw or something but then I got the collarbone pain.’
Ms Anderson was told about the aneurysm in her heart 10 years prior but doctors were regularly monitoring it.
A thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) – which affect 15,000 people in the US each year – is a bulge in the upper part of the body’s largest artery, known as the aorta.
The most common cause of a thoracic aortic aneurysm is hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis).
This condition is more common in people with high cholesterol, long-term high blood pressure, or who smoke.
Most thoracic aortic aneurysms grow slowly and cause no noticeable symptoms until they become large or rupture, making routine screening important for high-risk individuals.
They can be detected through imaging tests like CT scans, MRIs, or ultrasounds of the heart.
If they rupture, it can cause severe pain, internal bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure, and death if not treated immediately.
Patients offer suffer sudden pain in the upper back that spreads downward, pain in the chest, jaw, neck or arms and difficulty breathing.
Ms Anderson, who works for an aesthetics company producing laser products, was actually due to have pre-planned surgery on her heart just nine days after her aneurysm ruptured.
The survival rate for a burst thoracic aortic aneurysm is extremely low – at just 3 percent – but Ms Anderson defied the odds and feels ‘lucky to be alive’ after a successful operation to repair the artery.
Reflecting on the turn of events, she said: ‘I didn’t think it was my aneurysm as I didn’t have any of the symptoms they had warned me about.
‘I was always told if it were to ever rupture, I would experience a really bad headache and chest pain, but I didn’t experience any of that.
I’ve been told that 3 percent of people make it in this situation.
‘I remember my mother brought my children to the hospital so I was telling them I was going to be okay and didn’t have time to focus on how scary it really was.
‘I’d had 10 years to research what this was and I knew my chances weren’t great. The whole time I was thinking I was going to die and this was my last night.
‘I never thought it was going to rupture, and even when it did, I thought no this can’t be happening, I’m having surgery in 10 days.’
Above, an X-Ray showing where the surgeons inserted a man-made tube, called a graft, to replace the weak section of Ms Anderson’s aorta
The open chest surgery Ms Anderson received involved removing part of the aorta damaged by the aneurysm
Ms Anderson was rushed to hospital where she was told that her aortic aneurysm had torn, and the blood supply had been cut off from her ear to ankle.
Emergency open-heart surgery was performed immediately to repair the ascending aorta.
Ms Anderson remained in hospital for 11 days and will need another surgery in the future to repair her descending aorta, which carries oxygen-rich blood from the heart through to the chest and abdomen.
This surgery will be similar to the procedure she recently underwent.
Ms Anderson is now back home recovering, with some of the side effects from her surgery including pain and discomfort, swelling around the wound, a loss of appetite and difficulty sleeping.
Ms Anderson said her near-death experience has shifted her perspective on life after surviving the odds.
She mused: ‘I’m living in fear that this could happen again. I’ve been hospitalized twice since the surgery because of symptoms with my healing.
‘Any weird feeling, I just go back to hospital now.
‘I don’t think anyone thought I was at risk of the aneurysm rupturing. I feel so grateful to be alive. This is like a second chance at life.
‘Everyone says I’m a walking miracle. My cardiologist said “congratulations on being alive” because I shouldn’t be here. It’s given me a different perspective on life.’
