Kyra Smithlin from Puyallup has been chosen as one of the Go Red for Women® Real Women for 2024. This is what the American Heart Association calls their national ambassadors who are survivors. She was chosen for her inspiring story and her willingness to share it with others.
Forty-eight-year-old Kyra Smithlin, a mother of three, was at home in bed cuddling with her nine-year-old son Bryce on a Saturday morning in 2012 when she went into cardiac arrest. Her husband performed CPR and called 9-1-1. At the hospital, her heart stopped repeatedly for eight hours and she received 40 shocks from a total of three AED machines, leaving burn marks on her body. Doctors told her family to say their goodbyes. Bryce climbed on his mom’s bed and begged her “not to die.”
When Kyra woke up from a coma three days later, she asked for a pen and wrote, “Bryce is amazing.” Her doctors thought she may have non-compaction cardiomyopathy, a condition she was likely born with.
She was put on medication and received a defibrillator. Unfortunately, six months later her heart stopped again, and her defibrillator was replaced with a pacemaker defibrillator which helps to keep her heart beating.
Today, Kyra says she wouldn’t trade the whole experience for anything. The experience strengthened her marriage and she is grateful for every day and every breath. “I feel like we took everything for granted before,” explained Kyra. She is reminded every day that our health is so very important. She urges that at least one person in everyone’s family should be trained in CPR.
American Heart Association
For Additional Information
heart.org