American fitness enthusiast Jazmin Garza, 20, unexpectedly passed out on what appeared to be a typical afternoon after suffering from severe vertigo and convulsions. Her boyfriend was startled to discover that her breathing and heart had stopped. Until paramedics arrived and used a defibrillator to revive her, he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, this was just the beginning of a potentially fatal experience.
Jazmin’s heart stopped multiple times during the ambulance ride, with one arrest lasting up to five minutes. Her lungs, kidneys, and heart suffered severe damage as a result of each episode, which depleted her brain and organs of oxygen. Her family was informed by doctors that only a miracle could restore her to the person they knew, and they put her on life support.
Jazmin later recalled that she had not typically drank an energy drink with a lot of caffeine during a workout prior to the incident. Shortly thereafter, she became pale, lightheaded, and fainted. She had never had an epileptic episode before, but her boyfriend later told her it appeared to be one.
She was hooked up to several life-supporting devices while she was in the hospital, such as an oxygenation machine for her blood, a dialysis machine for her kidneys, and another to control her oxygen saturation levels. To keep an eye on and adjust her heart rhythm, a defibrillator was also implanted. Doctors tested her extensively but were unable to identify a clear cause for her cardiac arrests.
Surprisingly, Jazmin started to get better after two weeks of critical care. Although the results of her heart tests were normal, doctors hypothesized that the energy drink’s 200 mg of caffeine may have caused a crisis in addition to an unidentified cardiac condition. Jazmin acknowledged that she had disregarded symptoms like palpitations because she thought they were caused by anxiety.
Jazmin and her boyfriend were left unemployed and with medical debt as a result of the ordeal. She now exhorts people to pay attention to their bodies, consult a doctor as soon as possible, and use high-caffeine products with caution.