Daily London
Scarlett Hack was just 10 years old when she started experiencing a shortness of breath and heart palpitations.
Her symptoms were dismissed as anxiety, which she suffered with at the time, but her parents persisted and took her to several doctors before she was given an echocardiogram.
She was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart condition where the muscle thickens.
“The heart disease was spontaneous in me. My entire family doesn’t have any record of it, only me,” she told 9news.com.au.
“After the doctor’s appointment, my parents were told by the doctor, ‘You should learn CPR as this has no cure’.”
Hack’s symptoms only worsened over the next three years until she was diagnosed with a second heart disease called arrhythmia burden disease – the time the heart spends in abnormal rhythm.
She fainted often, which caused her heart to stop each time, and eventually had an internal defibrillator installed.
During a doctor’s appointment, her heart started racing and she went into cardiac arrest.
“I was screaming to my dad, ‘Don’t let me die, don’t let me die’,” she said.
”It was very traumatising.”
Hack was in cardiac arrest for 40 minutes and then put on life support.
Her parents had two choices: let her go or wait for a heart donor.
“I only had two weeks to get it. If not, I’d be declared brain dead,” she said.
“On the eighth day, my parents got the call at 2am, and they had a heart for me, and then I went into surgery at 7am.”
Now aged 18, Hack is studying nursing so she can care for other children who may be in the same position she was in.
New data by the Heart Research Institute found 144,000 Australians are living with a deadly heart disease, which claims nine lives and causes 170 hospitalisations each day.
Of those who survive heart failure, 65 per cent return to the emergency department within a year.
Heart Research Institute chief executive Andrew Coats said many people were unaware their heart was failing to pump blood and oxygen around the body as it should.
“Heart disease can affect any one of us,” he said.
“For too many Australians, it strikes without warning, taking the lives of loved ones far too soon.”
Part of the issue is awareness.
Hack urged anyone with symptoms of heart disease to get themselves checked.
“There’s no harm in you getting checked out by a doctor,” she said.
NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.
