UNION COUNTY, N.C. — A Union County mother in her 30s is back home and recovering after a brain aneurysm caused her heart to stop on the family farm, with doctors crediting her firefighter husband’s quick CPR and a series of lifesaving medical procedures for what they call a remarkable recovery.
Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz explains why doctors are calling it a miracle.
Sáenz met Darren and Kenzie Thomas on their Union County farm.
“I was in the very front yard mowing,” she said.
Her parents were there, too. They were wrapping up a day’s work.
Her father was on the tractor nearby.
“It was a quick jerk back to her left,” her dad, John Flynn, said.
She stumbled and fell to the ground.
Her father and husband rushed to her. She had no pulse.
Darren Thomas, a new Salem volunteer firefighter, didn’t think he would have to perform CPR on his wife, but he did.
“I grabbed her, grabbed her hand, and told her, said, ‘Honey, I’m sorry.’ I said, ‘Please don’t do this to me.’”
And then fireman mode just kicked in.
“It was hard,” he said. “We have so much to live for here.”
Kenzie Thomas was rushed to Novant Health in Matthews. Dr. Andrew Griffin said the CPR saved her life.
The 32-year-old woman had suffered a brain aneurysm, which caused a cardiac arrest, along with multiple strokes.
Griffin cared for her when she was transferred to Novant Health Presbyterian.
“She was one of the sickest patients I’ve ever taken care of,” the doctor said.
Griffin explained what they did at the hospital.
Hair-thin strands of platinum were delicately placed to block off the ruptured aneurysm.
Half of her skull was removed to allow the brain to swell.
Her prognosis was uncertain.
“I did not expect her to make the recovery that she has,” Griffin said.
“They told me to prepare myself,” Darren Thomas said. “I told her from the get-go that I was not going to leave her side.”
Kenzie Thomas recovered over several weeks. She learned to walk again.
She is grateful for what she has, especially for being a mom to six-year-old W.T. The mother dreams of returning to work as a nurse educator, caring for others. But for now, she will put one foot in front of the other across the farm made possible because the day her heart stopped, the people who loved her never did.
“She’s a fighter,” her dad said. “She’s a fighter.”
On July 7, Kenzie Thomas had half her skull put back in. She is at home and doing well.
Doctors said aneurysms are more common in women.
Symptoms include severe, painful headaches, but aneurysms are hard to diagnose and are often found by chance.
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