2026 Go Red for Women Class of Survivors: Priti Langer

A night of celebration turned into a crisis when chest pains awakened Priti Langer. Paramedics thought it might be a panic attack, but Priti, 46, insisted on going to the hospital, where she learned she had a heart attack.

Priti Langer spent the evening at a Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks concert celebrating a girlfriend’s 50th birthday. The group danced and sang and had an amazing night. They went back to their hotel and went to sleep, but Priti bolted awake at 3 a.m. with a squeezing pressure in her chest.

It couldn’t be a heart attack, Priti thought. She was a 46-year-old woman. She tried to get comfortable, but the pain grew worse. She woke up the friends sharing her room. When Priti mentioned possible indigestion, she was given an antacid tablet. Priti immediately took it, then rushed to the bathroom and vomited. The women woke more friends nearby and told them Priti’s symptoms, which now included pain in her jaw and arm. One woman, a nurse, called 911.

Priti felt dismissed during the initial encounter with paramedics, who suggested she may be having a panic attack or had just overdone it at the concert. In the ambulance medics performed an electrocardiogram, then asked Priti if she was sure she wanted to go to the hospital.

“Absolutely,” she said.

When she arrived, Priti threw up in a trash can. She was questioned again about a possible panic attack, even though she wasn’t showing signs of anxiety. She was holding her chest, asking someone to pay attention to her heart. Several minutes later, a man ran down from cardiology with the results of Priti’s EKG and told her they thought she was having a heart attack.

“I felt incredibly relieved, which is the opposite feeling that somebody should have hearing that,” she said. “I think that was mainly because, I said, ‘Thank God somebody's going to do something about the pain in my chest.’”

Priti was taken to the cardiac catheterization lab, where a specialist looked at the inner workings of her heart. Priti had suffered a heart attack caused by spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), wherein the artery wall suddenly tears away from the lining of the artery. Blood had pooled. The cardiologist inserted two stents in her arteries. She spent five days in the cardiac care unit before returning to her home in Fairfax, Virginia.

Priti followed up with three months of cardiac rehab and a regimen of medication. The lawyer and mother of three was eager to show her children she was in good shape. Her family and friends supported her recovery.

As the anniversary of her October 2023 heart attack approached, Priti thought about how she could have died. She got angrier and angrier each time she shared her story. What if her circumstances were different? What if there had been a language barrier? Would she have survived?

She began working on her mental health as part of her recovery. The more she talked to therapists and even her cardiologist, Priti came to understand the impact stress may have had in her heart attack.

“Now I am sort of slowing down and trying to take care of that aspect, too,” she said. “I think it's something that, as women and even busy professionals, mothers, we push through all of that and try to minimize that we're affected by things like stress.”

Priti, now 48, also questions the role menopause, which she had gone through the year before, may have played in her heart attack. She learned that hormonal changes during menopause may accelerate risk for cardiovascular disease.

As for advice to others, Priti encourages women to champion their own health.

“Listen to your bodies and really be your own health advocate,” she said. “I think that saved my life. You know, really knowing that something was wrong with me, and I wasn't going to leave until that was addressed, I think that that worked in my favor.”

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