Cardiac arrest survivor Omar Carter (right) with longtime friend and high school teammate Steph Curry. (Photo courtesy of Omar Carter) Omar Carter was hoping to catch the attention of an NBA scout when he walked onto the basketball court for a pro-am game in Charlotte, North Carolina. Carter had shown a lot of promise throughout…
Heart disease survivor JuNene K. is now climbing mountains and working toward a PhD in natural medicine. (Photo courtesy of JuNene K. Harris) Two days before her 40th birthday, JuNene K. Harris was asleep at home in Lancaster, Texas, when she woke up to her smartwatch buzzing incessantly on her wrist. JuNene – known professionally…
Brittany Clayborne (left) with her 13-year-old son, Micah, who is on the waiting list for a new heart after being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in December 2023. (Photo courtesy of Brittany Clayborne) Three days after Brittany Clayborne gave birth to her son, Micah, she couldn’t catch her breath. The then-26-year-old returned to the Dallas hospital…
Krissi Oden (left) with her mom, Edna Machen, in the mid-1990s. (Photo courtesy of Krissi Oden) One of the best dishes to come out of Edna K. Machen’s small-town West Texas home kitchen was chicken fried steak. Her fried chicken was pretty good, too. For Edna’s daughter, Krissi Oden, and Krissi’s older brother, Mark, and…
Claire Sprouse was five and a half months pregnant when she had a procedure to get a new aortic valve. (Photo courtesy of Edwards Lifesciences) As a teenager, Claire Sprouse spent hours in the ballet studio perfecting her pliés, then performing on stage. At 16, she started having chest pains. The problem indeed turned out…
When Nick Reed had a stroke while playing golf, his equilibrium was so off that he had to crawl into the clubhouse. (Photo courtesy of Matthew Watson Photography) On his way to the golf course one day last July, Nick Reed couldn’t get cool. He figured it had to do with the heat advisory in…
Joffrey Ballet performer Edson Barbosa was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation at 26. (Photo courtesy of Edson Barbosa) Lea en español Even as a teenager, Edson Barbosa could sometimes feel his heart beating extremely fast during rehearsals. It didn’t seem normal. But as a competitive ballet dancer in Rio de Janeiro, he wasn’t sure what normal…
Stroke survivor Amanda Porter on her 38th birthday earlier this year. (Photo courtesy of Amanda Porter) After a morning of working at home, Amanda Porter of Tulsa, Oklahoma, started getting ready to go to the supermarket. It was March 20, 2020, and the world was shutting down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She needed to…
Musician and cardiac arrest survivor Sal Italiano. (Photo courtesy of the Italiano family) Heavy metal bass guitarist Sal Italiano spent the day at the casino with his wife, Christine, and her 93-year-old aunt, then they all grabbed a bite to eat on the way back to the couple’s home in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Sal watched TV…
Fitness instructor and heart attack survivor Angie Mayo. (Photo courtesy of Josie Porter Photography) A few months before her 50th birthday, Angie Mayo and her husband, Carl, headed to Key West, Florida, for an early celebration. She could use the break from the 12-hour shifts at her factory production job and all the time she…