A North Carolina man who unknowingly lived with a rare heart condition was saved by his pregnant wife after he suddenly went into cardiac arrest while lounging in bed.
Brandon Whitfield, 39, was already preparing for one drastic lifestyle change when his wife, Angela, became pregnant last spring.
Then, he suffered an unexpected heart attack when she was just nine weeks along.
“I was eating carrot cake in bed watching the hockey playoffs. And mid-conversation, I just started to slump over,” Brandon recounted to WSOC-TV.
Angela didn’t think anything of it for a few seconds, figuring Brandon might just be groggy or joking, but “jumped into action” when she realized “this was an emergency.”
Thankfully, Angela has worked as a physician assistant for more than a decade. She knew what to do instantly and, after calling 911, started to perform CPR on her prone husband.
Angela was shaken in the moments after, though, as she started to rationalize what she’d just had to do.
“You absolutely never ever think you are going to have to do CPR on your spouse,” she told the outlet.
“I thought I may be a widow,” she added.
Brandon was rushed to a nearby Novant Health medical center and, to his horror, diagnosed with a rare heart condition.
“Just because you’re young and you’re fit and you’re relatively healthy doesn’t mean that heart disease can’t happen to you,” Brandon told the outlet.
Brandon was quick to laud his wife with praise.
“It was nothing short of a miracle. Everything lined up for her to be there. It was not my time,” he said.
In the wake of his shocking diagnosis, Brandon had to adopt a Mediterranean diet and is trying to be “more mindful” about what he eats — which means no more carrot cake.
After his brush with death, the dad-to-be implored others who may be taking their lives for granted to make sure they don’t leave anything unsaid, just in case their final days are nearer than they think.
“If you can do something today, do it today. If you can tell your family you love them, do it,” he said.
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