Boca Woman ‘Spontaneously’ Revives After 45 Minutes Without a Pulse

By CRA News Service

Doctors at Boca Raton Regional Hospital are calling it “a miracle.”

They have no way to explain how  Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro survived after spending 45 minutes without a pulse and enduring three hours of attempts to bring her back from near-death on Sept. 23.

They were about to declare the 40-year-old Boca Raton woman dead shortly after having delivering her new daughter by cesarean section.

“There was no pulse, no blood pressure and the patient was not breathing on her own,” Dr. Chadi Loutfi, a local pulmonologist, said.

Graupera-Cassimiro, now a mother of two, was suffering from a rare complication called an amniotic fluid embolism, in which the fluid that surrounds the baby in the womb enters the mother’s blood stream. The condition can cause life-threatening blood clots.

As Graupera-Cassimiro slipped into unconsciousness, doctors and nurses rushed back to her room in a desperate effort to save her life.

They began chest compression that would continue for 45 minutes. They took turns to avoid exhaustion and used electric shock paddles. But nothing worked.

Out of options, doctors began calling her family in to say goodbye. But then, incredibly, there was the blip of a heartbeat.

“It was indeed something we don’t see,” Loutfi said. “I’ve never seen it myself. The whole family and a big majority of the medical team believe there was some kind of divine intervention.”

Family members left the room and began praying.

Doctors took Graupera-Cassimiro off life support one day later.

On Tuesday, she and her newborn baby returned to the hospital to thank nurses and doctors for their life-saving efforts.

“All I know is that I’m grateful to be here,” Graupera-Cassimiro told them.” Had you guys maybe stopped before the 45 minutes of compressions …. I don’t know why I was given this opportunity, but I’m very grateful for it.”

Childbirth complications like Graupera-Cassimiro’s are rare – it is estimated that between 1 and 12 cases of amniotic embolism occur with every 100,000 births, according to the Mayo Clinic. Scientists don’t fully understand why complications occur for some mothers but not for others, but pregnancy at an older age, c-sections, and medically induced labor may increase the risk to some women.

Graupera-Cassimiro did not suffer any brain damage or physical injuries from efforts to revive her.

“There’s very few things in medicine that I’ve seen, working in the trauma center myself and doing all the things that I do, that really were either unexplainable or miraculous,” said Dr. Anthony Dardano, president of the hospital’s medical staff. “And when I heard this story, that was the first thing that came to my mind.”