In September 2023, Shai Gray, a 28-year-old woman from Tamaqua, suffered a severe heart condition known as ‘broken heart syndrome’. This happened at St. Luke’s Miners ER, where she had taken her son for a dog bite treatment. Gray, already dealing with the emotional stress of her grandmother’s recent death, had a cardiac arrest due to high stress levels.
Dr. Gerald Coleman, the ER Physician at St. Luke’s, and his team performed CPR on Gray and used a defibrillator to revive her. The process took about 30 minutes. After stabilizing Gray, she was transferred to St. Luke’s Bethlehem Campus.
At the Bethlehem Campus, Sudip Nanda, a cardiologist-electrophysiologist, inserted an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) in Gray’s chest. This device can stimulate the heart if it stops again. Gray had another heart arrest episode weeks later while shopping, but the ICD successfully revived her heart.
Dr. Steven Stevens, a cardiac electrophysiologist at St. Luke’s, suggested that Gray’s cardiac arrest might have been due to coronary vasospasm or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as Broken Heart Syndrome. These conditions can be triggered by high-stress situations. Darren Traub, another cardiac electrophysiology team member, observed that Gray’s heart arteries were spasming, leading to a condition called polymorphic ventricular tachycardia.