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Texas beauty queen suffered near-fatal cardiac arrest on football field - after doctors first dismissed her as 'dramatic hypochondriac'
Chloe Burke has always felt her most relaxed on a football field.
A keen athlete all her life, the Texas native thrived as a D1 collegiate cheerleader at the University of Houston — never missing a game.
Then, one day in 2019, while mid-routine at a game, the then 21-year-old collapsed to the ground.
'Everything went black,' Ms Burke, now 25, told DailyMail.com. Tests would later reveal that she'd suffered a freak cardiac arrest. There was no history of heart troubles in the family.
What followed was a frantic rush to save her life, involving three electric shocks to restart the organ and, ultimately, brutal open heart surgery, in which doctors were forced to crack open her chest and split her breastbone down the middle to access the heart.
Chloe Burke went into cardiac arrest at 21 years old while cheering at the University of Houston. She is now educating others about cardiac arrest as she competes for Miss Texas
Ms Burke was born with the heart condition myocardial bridging, though she did not know until she suffered a cardiac arrest. She had open heart surgery and spent four months in rehab
Despite a painstaking recovery in which she had to learn to walk and breathe all over again, Ms Burke was back on the football field for the next game, just 11 weeks after her surgery.
Now, in her new latest role as beauty queen — awarded Houston's title of Miss Space City last year — she is dedicating her life to teaching others about the deadly heart disease that almost killed her.
While some beauty queens are known for their desire for world peace, Ms Burke wants to save more Americans from catastrophic heart events.
She is lobbying for new legislation that would introduce CPR lessons in schools, and ensure widespread access to machines that can restart hearts using electrical shocks, called an automated external defibrillator (AED).
As part of her advocacy, Ms Burke recently teamed up with the American Heart Association (AHA) and traveled to Washington, DC to lobby for two heart-health bills: The Cardiomyopathy Health Education, Awareness, Research and Training in Schools (HEARTS) Act and the Access to AEDs Act.
Outside of legislative action, Ms Burke also travels across the state of Texas to talk about the importance of heart health and speaking up for your medical needs.
While her collapse may have been a shock, she told The American Heart Association she had suffered bizarre health problems for several years as a teenager, but doctors dismissed her as a 'young, over-dramatic hypochondriac'.
Ms Burke said she started experiencing symptoms of myocardial bridging in middle school, which became more severe as she got older and became more active. 'It just got worse and worse,' she said. The exertion of cheerleading likely led to her cardiac arrest
Ms Burke spent much of her teen years suffering sharp pains in her left arm and chest. By college, she would pass out from severe dizziness.
She wrote for the AHA: 'I spent over a year trying to find a proper diagnosis. I went undiagnosed due to my age, gender, and lack of familial history with heart issues.'
Studies have long suggested that women's heart problems are far less likely to be detected than mens', because of doctors' assumptions about the typical heart patient.
A 2011 study reported women often undergo fewer heart-related diagnostic tests than men, experience delays in treatment and receive less aggressive therapies.
However, cardiovascular diseases kill more women than all forms of cancer combined and nearly 45 percent of women 20 years and older are living with some form of the disease.
And even after her cardiac arrest — when the heart suddenly stops beating — and subsequent surgery, it still took more than a year for Ms Burke to receive her diagnosis of myocardial bridging, a congenital - present at birth - heart defect.
Myocardial bridging is a defect in which a person's left artery - the main artery that supplies blood and oxygen to the brain and body - is encased within the heart muscle instead of on top of it.
While this is usually harmless, in some rare cases, the heart muscle presses on the part of the artery going through it, which makes it harder for blood to flow to the heart.
This can lead to shortness of breath, dizziness, and heart palpitations, but repeated stress can weaken the heart over time.
It can also result in irregular heartbeats, a lack of blood flow to the heart and sudden cardiac death.
On average, about 25 percent of people have myocardial bridging, but only five percent know they have it, according to Stanford University.
While she didn't know she had the condition until after her cardiac arrest, she did experience classic symptoms as early as middle school/
Ms Burke said: 'Any time my heart would pump, that artery would get squeezed in my body. My brain wouldn't get any oxygen, and then the more that artery was squeezed, the weaker the artery would become.
'[My symptoms] became more aggressive as I got older. They were really aggressive in college. I was passing out multiple times a week, I was having to go to urgent care multiple times a week because I couldn't see anything.
'Over the years, that artery was weakening because it was getting compressed all the time. The more I exerted myself, the more it would get compressed, and the weaker it would get.
'It just became worse and worse.'
Ms Burke now works with the American Heart Association to raise awareness about cardiac arrest and access to AEDs
In her work, Ms Burke is lobbying for two bills, the HEARTS Act and the Access to AEDs act. She hopes both bills will provide more resources and training for children on how to help someone suffering a cardiac arrest
Following Ms Burke's on-field cardiac arrest, she underwent a traumatic operation in which surgeons cracked open her chest to access her heart and perform repairs.
The procedure saved her life, but the recovery was gruelling.
'I had to basically learn how to reuse all the muscles in my chest because they got all ripped,' she said.
Ms Burke was also sent to several weeks of cardiac rehabilitation, during which she would do different levels of exercise so her heart could gradually get used to pumping and beating at higher rates.
She said: 'I took my rehab and I ate, slept, breathed it for 11 weeks. It was a huge mental and physical barrier, but it's something that I worked every single solitary day for.
'And I truly think my mindset of that grit and determination is what got me through it quicker.'
'The more people that learn it, the more of a proactive culture and community you have around us, people who can act within seconds and save someone's life and save someone's quality of life,' Ms Burke said
Despite her setback, Ms Burke graduated college on time with a perfect GPA.
She attributes her success to a strong network of friends and family, all of whom learned how to perform chest compressions and use an AED.
Ms Burke added: 'It really showed [my friends] how to be proactive in situations and be prepared for situations like that.
'And I think that led to me having such a strong support system and led to me being able to go back to achieving great things right away after having this huge, life-changing incident happen.'
Ms Burke notes she is 'one-in-million lucky,' as she was left with far fewer complications than many other cardiac arrest survivors.
But she still finds herself needing to take breaks often and pace herself in her job as a personal trainer, and she suffers bouts of lightheadedness.
'I have to be very aware of my own body and what's going on in my body and know how to pace myself during certain things so I can avoid exhaustion that happens quicker,' she said.
The trainer added: 'When I am working out, or I am leading other people and fitness classes and things like that, I constantly know what's going on in my body and how to pace myself when I do hit those levels of sooner exhaustion and expect it from my heart, just getting too tired too quickly.'
However, aside from measuring her blood pressure every day and taking medications to regulate it, Ms Burke has not had to make any major lifestyle accommodations.
Now, after three years of pageant competitions and winning Houston's title of Miss Space City, she is using her platform to educate others about cardiac arrest signs and prevention.
'The more people that learn it, the more of a proactive culture and community you have around us, people who can act within seconds and save someone's life and save someone's quality of life,' Ms Burke said.