Courtesy of CentraCare
Sudden hiccups that wouldn’t go away were Cindy Miessen’s sign that something wasn’t right. Little did the Annandale resident know it was the beginning of cardiac arrest and she’d soon benefit from new Impella technology that would help save her life.
“You know how you hold your breath to get your hiccups to stop,” Cindy asked. “I was doing that kind of stuff, and it just wasn’t working.”
It was Sunday night on Oct. 16, 2022, when the 65-year-old grandmother of four had been experiencing persistent hiccups for roughly 10 minutes. Cindy was hesitant to wake her husband, Jerry, who had to be up early for work the next day. Uncertainty got the best of her, and she decided to seek his help.
When she woke up her husband, she remembers not being able to breathe and gasping for air. Not knowing what was happening, the couple decided to call 911. She heard Jerry give the emergency operator their address, and that’s the last thing she remembers before going unresponsive.
When first responders arrived, they started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). “My family told me I died three times. On the way to the hospital paramedics were trying to intubate me and were unsuccessful,” Cindy revealed.
Cindy’s family arrived at CentraCare – St. Cloud Hospital and was escorted into a room where a chaplain was waiting. “My husband explained that our son was in Colorado hunting and asked if he should come home. A doctor told our son to get home as soon as possible, flying rather than driving.”
CentraCare Cardiologist Stephen Kidd, MD, met with her family. Because her situation was so serious, he explained they were going to use an Impella to help support Cindy’s heart function by pumping blood out of her heart to the rest of her body.
The world’s smallest heart pump, the Impella gives the left ventricle a break so it can recover more quickly, and it provides the body with the right amount of blood flow when your heart isn’t working properly.
“Dr. Kidd told my family it goes up into the heart and has a fan that helps distribute blood. He kept it simple, and that’s about all we knew about it,” Cindy admitted.