2026 Go Red for Women Class of Survivors: Shanelle Dawes

Shanelle Dawes was a seemingly healthy 35-year-old mom when she had a heart attack and emergency open-heart surgery. She wants women of all ages to recognize heart attack symptoms and to know that heart disease doesn’t only affect older people.

Shanelle Dawes was preparing to walk a half-marathon. The 35-year-old former track athlete and former college cheerleader was logging three to four miles a day. She felt really good that day. Preparing for dinner she began cooking a pot of spaghetti. Suddenly, Shanelle was hit with intense nausea. Her 10-year-old son Vishal saw the distressed look on his mom’s face and brought her a glass of water.

Shanelle ran to the bathroom, threw up and was sweating. She went to her room to lie down. A few minutes later, she felt massive chest pains, pounding one after another. She grabbed the side of her bed, unable to speak. She saw her son, Vishal was frightened.

Vishal brought his mom a wet cloth, then called her boyfriend. In the 20 minutes it took him to get there, Shanelle’s chest pains had passed. She rested that night and didn’t think about going to the doctor.

Shanelle felt sluggish the rest of the week and was discouraged because she hadn’t been walking. She tried to get in a few miles, but as soon as she started building up speed on her walk, her chest pains returned. She told her mom, who was working out, too, that she needed to return home because she didn’t feel well. Her mother finished running a mile, then went inside the house and Shanelle told her she thought she needed medical attention.

Shanelle told her mom about the chest pains from the week before. This pain felt the same. Her mom rushed her to the emergency room. By the time they arrived, Shanelle needed a wheelchair. After some tests, the doctor came in and said there were cardiac enzymes in her blood, indicating she had had a heart attack a week earlier. She was admitted into the hospital for monitoring.

“That has always been very scary for me because I had gone all week without receiving any treatment,” Shanelle said. “Even scarier is that I had most heart attack symptoms, and I was unable to recognize any of them.”

Shanelle’s health worsened during the two-day stay. The cardiologist considered ordering a stress test but decided to look at the inner workings of Shanelle’s heart since she was young and fairly healthy. He told Shanelle she may need a stent if there was a blockage in her arteries that needed to be opened.

“Once he took a look inside, that's when he realized I was in trouble, and I needed to be airlifted,” Shanelle said. “I went from that table to the chopper, and they airlifted me to Raleigh, North Carolina, where I underwent emergency open-heart surgery.”

Shanelle had a sense of calm before the operation, but her family was frightened. They were allowed in to see her one by one. Her dad offered his own heart to make his daughter better. Shanelle underwent bypass surgery to treat multiple blockages and pulled through.

The middle school assistant principal from Middlesex, North Carolina, did six months of cardiac rehab determined that what she went through in October 2016 “was not going to take me out.”

Soon Shanelle reached out to the American Heart Association and began volunteering. She also took charge of her lifestyle and began to eat healthier, continued to move her feet and allowed herself me-time to help manage stress.

“I love to read every night before I go to bed,” said Shanelle, now 44. “I may not always be able to get a bubble bath in there, but I try once or twice a week just to relax and make sure I give myself quiet time.”

Shanelle encourages other women to know the signs and symptoms of a heart attack and to call 911 immediately if something doesn’t feel right. She also wants people to recognize that what happened to her doesn’t only happen to older people.

“I’m living proof that heart disease can happen to anyone, at any age,” Shanelle said.

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