High school student, Molly Alter, fell limp while braiding her best friend, Jackie Acierno’s hair, and it was the heroic actions of Jackie to perform CPR that saved her life, originally reported by Time Magazine.
Molly suffers from the rare disease hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, or also known as HHT. HHT is an intense disease that affects the flow of blood, which can lead to aneurysms, heart attacks and more fatal outcomes. To learn more about HHT, click here.
Undiagnosed at the time, Molly had consistent spells of lightheadedness, causing her to collapse. She went to many doctor visits and tests thinking it was related to blood pressure or a brain tumor, but they weren’t doing the trick until her near-death experience forced doctor to look further.
People often don’t realize that CPR is not as intimidating to perform as it seems. It doesn’t always come with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and you shouldn’t have to worry about actually breaking anyone’s ribs. This is what Molly and Jackie told Time Magazine. Jackie called 9-1-1, interlaced her hands, and pressed down consistently to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” to indeed keep her friend living. They were only minutes from the terrifying alternative.
Molly expressed that if Jackie waited even 6 minutes to perform CPR, she would have experienced brain damage and 4 more minutes after that, death. There are many causes of cardiac arrest, and no matter the cause, 92% of individuals experiencing these symptoms die.
What Molly would love for people reading this to take away, is to TAKE ACTION like Jackie if you’re in a similar situation. People sometimes feel embarrassed to take action because they think it might not be that serious of a situation. It’s better to be embarrassed for being overly precautious, than be too embarrassed to take action and someone dies. It also doesn’t take someone with legitimate medical credentials to perform such a task. If you’d like to learn more about CPR, you can click here.
HHT is a scary rare disease because often it goes undetected and Molly had to face a life threatening situation in order for the truth to be eventually revealed. After her diagnosis she underwent two surgeries that would ensure this situation would never happen again.
