September 26, 2023
Slumped on a kitchen chair, Christie Klassen’s first thought was, “This can’t be a heart attack.” She was healthy and 39 years old.
Her next thought was, “Please, God, don’t let Noah respond to this call.”
Klassen lives with her husband and their three children in the community of Rosenort, about 45 minutes south of Winnipeg.
On March 23, 2021, she was at home working in the kitchen and joking around with her husband, Nick. Suddenly, she didn’t feel right.
A shooting pain started in her ears and jaw and spread to her chest and back. Her jaw locked up and she lost her ability to speak clearly. Her arms ached. She was sweating buckets.
Her husband noticed something was wrong and sat her down. She became nauseated. She felt like her chest did not want to let her breathe because it hurt too much. She drifted in and out of consciousness. Her hands cramped up and curled to her chest.
“The closest thing I could compare it to was delivering a baby, where you just go inside yourself and focus on the essentials,” said Klassen. “I tuned out the world, and it was time to breathe. Just breathe.”
Her eldest son, Noah, is a volunteer firefighter with the RM of Morris Fire Department in Rosenort. Her husband had called 911. Seeing the alert from the emergency dispatcher, Noah realized, “That’s my address!”
Sure enough, Noah was the first to arrive. “You’re going to be OK, Mom,” he told Klassen. “The ambulance is on its way.”
The paramedics did an electrocardiogram (ECG) that confirmed she was having a heart attack. There are two types, the more serious of which is called a STEMI, where a main heart artery is suddenly blocked by a blood clot. That was what she was having. If left untreated, one in four STEMI patients will die in the first few hours or days.
St. Boniface Hospital was where she needed to go, and it was 45 minutes away.
In the ambulance rushing to Winnipeg, the paramedics assured Klassen she was in good hands.
“Their words calmed me and made that ride seem not as scary. I remember being so grateful that they were able to give me something for the pain in my chest and back,” she said.
“Meanwhile, they sent information from the ECG and my status to my cardiac care team standing by at St. Boniface.”
When they arrived at the Hospital, her care team was waiting for her. She quickly underwent angioplasty, an operation in which her artery was rapidly unblocked and widened with a small balloon.
Klassen was in St. Boniface for the next week. “The doctors and nurses who cared for me were phenomenal. They were very responsive and very empathetic to my needs,” she said.
She is 41 years old now. Her worst nightmare came true in April 2023, when she had a second, non-STEMI heart attack while she and Nick were on vacation at a resort in the Dominican Republic. The same pain started in her ears and jaw, only not as severe as before, and spread to her chest and back.
She was rushed to a hospital in Punta Cana. About a week later, she was back in St. Boniface to make sure her artery was unblocked and for further treatment.
“They gave me a blood clot-melting intravenous drug and, once again, my care at the Hospital was excellent.”
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