Tabatha McElligott told yesterday how she had a heart attack at 17 because she was given her first school detention. Continue reading after the jump!
@capriSUNshine
Tabatha did not realise she was suffering from a condition that could have killed her at any minute.
And when she panicked after getting caught with a pal for sneaking out of school she collapsed.
Tabatha said:
“When we got to the gates, I could hear my teacher calling my name, and my heart started hammering. She began to tell us off, but my heart kept beating harder and harder, and her voice sounded really distant. I felt my legs turning to jelly, and then everything went black. I now know my heart was a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off.”
Luckily an emergency first aider got to the school within three minutes to restart Tabatha’s heart.
She was rushed to hospital and experts later diagnosed a rare condition that causes the body to pump blood around the heart the wrong way.
Just ten per cent of sufferers survive beyond their first birthday. Tabatha, of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, has now made a full recovery after surgery.
She has also trained to be a first aider like the person who saved her at Westcliff High School for Girls.
The blonde, now 19, added: “I was off school for the rest of the term, so I never was given that detention!”
