Monday 16 May 2022 10:46 PM Indiana woman, 24, gets heart transplant a decade after serious cardiovascular ... trends now
An Indiana woman that suffered a heart attack at just age 14 has received a life-changing heart transplant a decade later, and encourages others to become organ donors if possible.
Jaelyn Kinchelow, 24, from Avon, Indiana, collapsed one day while running at middle school track practice at only age 14. It was later discovered that she had suffered a heart attack.
She underwent open-heart surgery where doctors repaired a torn coronary artery — near her heart — using a vein from her leg.
The surgery held for almost ten years allowing the student to take up roller skating, join a choir and even begin studying to become a nurse.
But in her final semester of nursing school, Kinchelow began struggling with shortness of breath and found herself unable to walk up stairs — leading doctors at Riley's Hospital for Children, in Indianapolis, to put her on the transplant list.
Two months later she was called before getting in the shower saying they had found the heart, and inviting her in for the 12-hour surgery.
Heart attacks are very rare among children, but they can happen — often being caused by an underlying developmental problem with the heart. It is not clear whether Kinchelow had any heart defects before the heart attack.
Jaelyn Kinchelow, 24, from Avon in Indiana, suffered a heart attack while running a race at school when she was just 14 years old. She has now received a heart transplant at Riley's Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana,
Kinchelow is pictured left in 2012 after suffering her heart attack. Doctors repaired a torn coronary artery near her heart using a vein from her leg. And she is pictured right back in the hospital for her heart transplant
Kinchelow is pictured above at Riley's Hospital for Children, in Indianapolis, where she was on the waiting list for two months before getting a heart transplant
Kinchelow broke down describing the moment she got the phone call saying they had a heart for her.
She said: 'It was just like, you know, we never know when a heart is going to be available: You could wait two weeks, you could wait six months, you could wait a year. I just had to mentally prepare myself.
But three
