News Digest

Mother survives 45 mins with no pulse after caesarean complications

A woman has survived for 45 minutes without a pulse after complications from a caesarean section, it has been revealed. A team of doctors spent three hours trying to bring Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro back to life after she suffered a rare amniotic fluid embolism after the birth of her child. Doctors were preparing to pronounce the 40-year-old’s death and had even called her mother, husband and sister into the operating room, and told them there was nothing more they could do. But then her heart started beating again.

She essentially spontaneously resuscitated when we were about to call the time of death.

Thomas Chakurda, spokesman for Boca Raton Hospital

Graupera-Cassimiro had given birth to a healthy daughter, named Taily, on Sept. 23, before the amniotic fluid entered her bloodstream and heart, stopping her circulation in what is often a fatal condition. Despite being without a pulse for 45 minutes, Graupera-Cassimiro suffered no brain damage and doctors have described her as “the picture of health” now. She suffered no burns from the shocks delivered by doctors in their effort to restart her heart and no bruises from the CPR they gave her to keep her blood flowing. She was back at her Deerfield Beach home within days.

I don’t know why I was given this opportunity but I’m very grateful for it. God had the right people in the right place.

Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro