Layne Strookman, 34, gave birth to her third baby on January 9, 2025, with a smooth pregnancy and delivery behind her. Six weeks postpartum, Layne drove her older two kids to school, marking her first time out of house with all three kids. As she approached the school, she began to feel heart attack symptoms; becoming extremely sweaty and dizzy, her arms were numb, and a feeling of an immense amount of pressure began in her chest and neck; it felt as though someone was trying to strangle her. She thought the symptoms were related to postpartum but decided to visit the school nurse.  Layne told her she wasn’t feeling well and had her blood pressure checked, which read at a sky high 170/30.  She laid down and clutched her chest, a universal sign of a heart attack. Layne, a nurse practitioner herself, felt she was too young and too fit to be a having a heart attack. She just wasn’t the typical heart attack patient, she thought it couldn’t be.

Thankfully the school nurse ignored Layne’s attempt to belittle the situation and called an ambulance for Layne. She was rushed to the hospital, the same healthcare system she worked for. Her troponin levels were elevated, signifying heart muscle damage, again not typical for her age and shape. Within a few hours, she was rushed to the cardiac catheterization lab. Physicians diagnosed her with a heart attack due to a Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) in her left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. With no intervention that would benefit her condition, physicians decided to monitor her for two days, as SCAD has a 20% chance of recurrence. Layne’s blood pressure returnedto normal and two days later, she returned home. She thought to herself “this is the end of it.”

Then everything went haywire; “I was home for 12 hours and in the middle of the night while I was nursing my baby, I started to feel the same symptoms in my chest, yet this time it was worse.” She handed her baby to her husband and called 9-1-1.  Layne met EMS at her door telling them “I’m having a heart attack. I need to get to hospital immediately.”  EMS hooked her up to EKG and with a quick glance, Layne could tell she was having massive heart attack, a“widow maker”.  She was rushed back to the hospital and once in the ER, she advocated for immediate care, telling physicians “I need to get to the catheterization lab.”  The ER physician ran additional blood tests, including a troponin test which is an indicator of a heart attack. Layne’s troponin level was 10,0000, when a healthy adults troponin level is very low or even undetectable. Layne was raced to the catheterization lab.

Defibrillator pads were placed on Layne’s chest.  Layne remembers hearing a physician say, “we need open heart surgery. It’s really bad.”

Layne suffered a second SCAD heart attack, this time in multiple arteries.  Layne was in cardiogenic shock and needed emergency triple bypass surgery. Her ejection fraction (EF) was just 15%, compared to a normal EF at 55-65%, and an Impella heart pump was placed to support her very weak heart. Medical staff discussed the possibility of a heart transplant with her family. They prayed for a sign of hope.

Layne’s first memory after all of this was waking up in ICU intubated and unable to talk or communicate. “My hands had mittens on from ICU in case I pulled my chords. I was pretty sure I was being a pain.”  She was in the ICU with Impella support, and physicians continued weaning it down. She wasn’t sure her heart would recover but here jection fraction improved to 30%, confirming that Impella would be removed and she wouldn’t need a heart transplant.

Layne was discharged after two weeks, with a long road to recovery.She had to have an internal defibrillator placed and a dual ICD/pacemaker recently placed due to her ejection fraction falling below 35%, which means she has greater risk of going into cardiac arrest.

Today, Layne is back to her 12-hour shifts as a nurse practitioner, which have been great for her. She sees a therapist once a week due to her PTSD and anxiety from the trauma. She is now supporting and leaning on women and moms that have gone through traumas like breast cancer, stillbirth, traumatic birth experiences, as well as heart failure, which is helping with the grieving process to relearn to live in a way you never thought you would. “I have a community of these women who have experienced this trauma and can say it’s the one thing that got me through the darkest moments.” Layne is currently working with St. Luke’s to establish a formal support group for women who have experienced trauma like herself. “It’s so easy to feel so alone in these circumstances. My husband, parents, and sister were all there for me and I still feel so isolated. No one can understand unless they have gone through this, especially moms who are juggling their own health conditions. This has been such a huge comfort.”

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