By Anne Ruisi
Her 42nd wedding anniversary, on Aug. 2, 2021, was almost the last for Sharon Dawkins.
She was home in unincorporated Jefferson County near Mountain Brook working out upstairs on her Peloton bike when her husband, Jim Dawkins, heard a thud and found his wife unconscious on the floor.
When paramedics from the Mountain Brook Fire Department got to the couple’s home, they had to restart her heart twice and told her husband to be prepared in case she didn’t survive.
That she is alive and healthy 18 months later is a miracle, Dawkins, 66, said. That she didn’t suffer brain damage when her heart stopped beating, as her doctor feared, is another.
She doesn’t remember much about the incident – the efforts by paramedics to restart her heart twice, the race to Ascension St. Vincent’s Birmingham or her three-week stay St. Vincent’s, including one week in an induced coma.
Dawkins does remember waking up from the coma and asking her husband, who was by her side, “Why am I in the hospital?”
When he told her she’d had a heart attack, she said, “I laughed. He said, ‘No, you had a heart attack.’”
She also discovered she had broken her ankle when she fell off the bike.
She spent a week at a rehabilitation hospital following her discharge from St. Vincent’s.
Having a heart attack was a terrifying experience but also a surprising one, Dawkins said. While she had a history of atrial fibrillation, a disease of the heart characterized by irregular and often faster heartbeat, stroke is more commonly associated with this condition.
“I had no clue I was at risk for” a heart attack, Dawkins said.
She’d retired from Southern Company four months before the heart attack and was about 20 pounds overweight. Dawkins said she’d worked with a personal trainer to get in better shape. While she was trying to take care of herself, she’d also started eating somewhat unhealthily, like fast food on occasion. And she was feeling fatigued.
“My mother had a history of heart disease, so I probably shouldn’t have developed those habits,” Dawkins said.
At the hospital doctors discovered she had a blockage and put in stents, Dawkins said.
Her cardiologist, Dr. Christopher DeGroat of Ascension St. Vincent’s Birmingham, said it was feared that she’d suffered anoxic brain injury due to being deprived of oxygen between the time she suffered the heart attack and when paramedics got there.
When she came out of the induced coma, it was discovered she’d suffered no brain damage. Dawkins attributes her recovery to her medical team, including DeGroat, and the prayer warriors who prayed for her.
Since the heart attack, Dawkins has welcomed a granddaughter, Vivienne, who was born exactly a year after the heart attack, and a new daughter-in-law when her son married in October.
Her heart function is completely normal now, compared to moderately to severely reduced when she first went to the hospital, DeGroat said.
“I wish I could say that every case is like that,” he said.
Last August, on the one-year anniversary of the heart attack, Dawkins and her family brought dinner to the Mountain Brook fire station to thank the paramedics and firefighters who responded and saved her life so she could make it to the hospital.
The firefighters “were glad I made it,” she said.
Today Dawkins is more conscious of what she eats and pays closer attention to ingredients and nutritional information on items at the grocery store. She cut out deli meat, which she likes, and reduced her salt and fat intake as advised by her doctor, who she sees every six months. Exercise is important too.
“I’m so glad I’m here,” she said. “I feel a debt of gratitude to Dr. DeGroat.”
