Bride Becomes Hero at Own Wedding After Guest Collapses from Heart Attack
If ever it could be said that it wasn’t someone’s time to pass away, the people involved in this situation could definitely make that claim.
Everyone was having a great time at Micaela Johnson’s wedding.
The music was loud and festive, and the dance floor was active with celebratory guests.
Then someone screamed for the band to stop the music.
“When I turned around, I had seen this person on the ground,” Johnson told Inside Edition.
Some guests had already grabbed their phones and called for 911.
“We’re at a wedding and we think someone’s had a heart attack,” one 911 caller reported.
“We’re at a wedding. We just had somebody go down on the floor,” said another 911 caller.
As it turns out, the man who collapsed was in the best possible situation he could be in for experiencing a health emergency. Johnson is an emergency room nurse. And several of her friends at her wedding are also professional nurses.
They all work at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which is Harvard Medical School’s second largest teaching hospital in the Boston area.
She and a few of her friends rushed over to the unconscious guest who had crumbled to the floor.
“This was very like spur of the moment, everybody just kind of jumped in,” one of the nurses said.
The nurses did a very quick assessment. The man’s poor color and the fact he wasn’t breathing brought them to the rapid conclusion to immediately start CPR.
It just so happened that the venue also had a defibrillator, which the nurses incorporated into their emergency care of the unconscious guest.
“It seemed like a very long time that we were working on him and doing CPR and getting shocked,” another of the nurses said.
They kept at it until the paramedics showed up and took over, transporting him to the hospital.
Johnson and her friends later learned that the distressed guest actually woke up and was talking in the ambulance.
It was later determined that there was a blockage in his left anterior descending artery, according to Mix 97.3.
A blockage of this nature generally causes a massive heart attack known as a “widow maker.”
Not all heart attacks are widow maker heart attacks, but a person can’t tell which type of heart attack is taking place based on symptoms alone. It’s best just to get immediate medical attention if a heart attack is suspected, according to WebMD.
Some of the symptoms suggestive of a possible heart attack are:
- Chest pain
- Upper body pain or discomfort in one or both arms, back, neck, jaw or stomach
- Shortness of breath
- Nausea
- Cold sweat
- Lightheadedness
- Pain in the back of the jaw
This story has a happy ending in that Johnson was later told that her wedding guest survived this particular health emergency.
The quick action of Johnson and the other first responders at this event, in partnership with the grace of God, are are certainly extending the gift of a second chance to the man who attended Johnson’s wedding.
