Kathy Patten: Clinically dead woman brought back to life while daughter gave birth
A Baltimore woman who was clinically dead for 45 minutes after suffering a heart attack was revived at the same hospital where her daughter was simultaneously undergoing an emergency C-section just rooms away.
Kathy Patten was on the golf course on July 2, 2021, when she received a call that her daughter Stacey Fifer was going into labor with Patten's eighth grandchild. Arriving at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, and anxiously waiting by her side, Patten suddenly began to feel sick. According to a People, medical workers recommended she head to the center's Emergency Room. But even with her proximity — she was in the same building as the ER — Patten never made it there before going into cardiac arrest. With no pulse, blood pressure or oxygen going to her brain, Patten was clinically dead for 45 minutes while doctors administered CPR. Miraculously, doctors said, she woke up with no damage to her brain, and has since made a full recovery. "I’m so grateful God gave me a second chance. I’m just going to be the best person I can be," Patten said, according to WJZ. "It’s very scary, coming back is a second chance of life."
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Despite the grim prognosis, doctors at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center said they were determined to bring Patten back. "Nobody was going to stop. Nobody was going to relent from anything they were doing. We wanted you to survive more than anything else," said Dr David Vitberg, who helped with the resuscitation told Patten, WBAL reported. "You asked why we didn't give up. We didn't give up because you didn't give up. You were going to survive," Dr. Dov Frankel, who also assisted in in the resuscitation said.
Meanwhile, Fifer was having trouble giving birth to her firstborn, Alora, who had become stuck in her birth canal after 36 hours of labor. As her mother was just starting her own recovery just a few rooms away, Fifer was forced to undergo an emergency C-section. Doctors said the birth was the second miracle that day. Fifer credited Alora with saving her mother's life. "It was just fate that my Mom was supposed to be here. It was ultimately because of Alora that my Mom is here and happened to be at the right place at the right time. She truly is a walking miracle."
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, September 14, administrators at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center said the hospital deployed unusually aggressive resuscitation techniques, which they said had helped save Patten's life. "Back in the day when we were running codes, we didn't have that technology to assist our staff to say, 'You're not doing chest compressions deep enough,' and I know that's one of the reasons you're sitting here," Dr. JoAnn Ioannou, executive vice president of hospital operations told Patten, according to WBAL.