2026 Go Red for Women Class of Survivors: Stephanie Austin
In her mid-30s, Stephanie Austin felt she was at the peak level of her fitness. But one morning, her husband found her in sudden cardiac arrest, called 911 and started CPR. She came home from the hospital with a defibrillator and a pacemaker in her chest. Now, Stephanie teaches CPR to help others save lives.
At 35, Stephanie Austin played on three soccer teams, including a competitive team with men. She was on a co-ed Ultimate Frisbee team, lifted weights and had recently picked up tennis. She was also a busy mom of two and PTA president.
She felt at the top of her game, despite being previously diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. It often causes the heart muscle to become enlarged, thick or rigid. The result can be heart failure or irregular heartbeats called arrythmias.
Early one morning when awakened by a call, her husband, Matt, an orthopedic surgeon, heard Stephanie gasping for breath beside him in bed. Matt called her name, but she didn’t respond. He rolled her over and saw Stephanie’s face was blue. She had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.
Matt called 911 and started CPR. He could hear the sirens as he continued the chest compressions. He only stopped to race down three flights of stairs to let the paramedics inside. During that time, Stephanie was without oxygen circulating to her organs and brain. The medics worked to revive her with a defibrillator and finally got a pulse back in route to the community hospital.
Twelve hours later, Stephanie was airlifted to a university hospital in Philadelphia better equipped to deal with her complex condition. They started hypothermic therapy, lowering her body temperature, to preserve brain function. When Stephanie woke up the next day, she was slurring and stuttering, unable to recognize her family and not sure why she was hospitalized.
She spent two weeks in the hospital before going home with a defibrillator and pacemaker placed inside her chest. The implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD, would send an electric shock to Stephanie’s heart if a dangerously irregular heartbeat was detected, thus reducing her risk of sudden cardiac death.
Recovery meant sleeping 12 to 18 hours a day for the first eight months since she was experiencing heart failure.
“All I could do was maintain myself,” she said. “I can't be a mom. I can't be a wife. I can't be a friend, a sister or anything else. All I can do is keep myself alive. And there's a lot of guilt that came with that.”
The mental aspect was more difficult than her physical limitations. Her short-term memory was greatly impacted, and she was unable to remember the three years around her event in July 2008. She also became aware of how stress led to her developing arrythmias, so she now refuses to let stress in.
“When you've almost lost everything, you can do more than you realize you can do,” said Stephanie, now 52, of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. “That power can mean the difference between life and death.”
A few years after her event, Stephanie learned of her family’s history of heart disease. Her mother’s aunt died in her 30s of a cardiac event. Then Stephanie’s older son learned that he had cardiomyopathy at 19. Further study showed he was at risk for a sudden cardiac arrest, so he now also has a defibrillator and a pacemaker. Doctors continue to monitor Stephanie’s younger son.
After getting over her fear of learning new things in the face of her memory loss, Stephanie became CPR certified and found a new purpose, training others to save lives as hers had been saved.
“What constantly amazes me is that people don't realize how simple it can be and how impactful it can be,” she said. “I can think of few things worse than watching someone suffer and not being empowered to help.”
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