Carrollton restaurant worker meets team who saved her life after heart attack

PLANO, Texas - A woman who nearly died after suffering a heart attack at work got to meet the team who saved her life.

"If there had been a 5-minute delay anywhere along the line, it would have just been completely fatal. Everything we did we just barely got there in time," said Dr. Mark Peterman, an interventional cardiologist at Texas Health Plano.

42-year-old Maria Lourdes Barron suffered a heart attack while working at Nico's Cocina in Carrollton.

"Then doing CPR on her over and over again for 45 minutes, just thinking I don't know how her brain is going to survive all this, and yet she is here with us today," said Dr. Peterman.

"Just a case I consider miraculous, I like to think I do amazing things as an interventional cardiologist, but the combination of events here was such that I don't know how it all came together so perfectly to allow her to survive this episode," said Dr. Peterman.

Barron speaks Spanish, so her daughter Yadira Esquivel told us she is also thankful her mother's manager did not hesitate to call 911.

"She started feeling a chest pain when she was walking to the bathroom, she went and splashed water on her face and as she was on her way to the bathroom she just collapsed in front like on the table," said Esquivel. "She thought it would be the end of her life. She is just really thankful to be here and grateful to everyone that helped, her doctors."

Dr. Peterman said Barron had no risk factors for a heart attack, but suffered a spontaneous event.

"This was the first left main coronary dissection I've ever seen," he said.

In addition to a team of about 20 people at Texas Health, Dr. Peterman also credited the firefighter paramedics who acted fast, alerting the hospital to get ready as they were on the way.

"Quickly got her loaded up in the back of the ambulance, an EKG done, picture of her heart and recognized very promptly that she was having a stemi," said Cade Lane, a paramedic. 

"We lose some people, and we save some people, but rarely is someone as young and vibrant as her in a situation so near death and, yet, able to make a full recovery."

"Thank you so much, I don't know what I would do without my mom," Esquivel said.