Bay Shore woman reunites with hospital team who saved her life
Keri Richards drove herself to the emergency room after feeling severe chest pain and trouble breathing.
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A Bay Shore woman returned to South Shore University Hospital to thank the team that revived her after a sudden heart attack.
Keri Richards, 47, drove herself to the emergency room last September after feeling severe chest pain and trouble breathing. An EKG showed she was having a major heart attack, and moments later, she went into cardiac arrest. Medics shocked her three times to restart her heart before rushing to an operating table, where doctors placed two stents.
Now fully recovered, Richards reunited with her care team on Thursday during the hospital’s first “Thank a Lifesaver” event, a Northwell Health program that lets survivors meet the clinicians who saved them.
Richards hopes that sharing her experience encourages others to pay attention to unusual symptoms.
“I just felt different. I knew my body. I’d never felt like that before,” she said.
The date of her heart attack, Sept. 26, was the same day her mother died of a heart attack 29 years earlier, a coincidence Richards calls emotional and humbling.
