A SCHOOLGIRL was given just 14 days to live after collapsing during a dance class. Scarlett Hack's heart suddenly stopped beating and she was rushed to hospital, where she had an internal defibrillator fitted and was sent home. But Scarlett, from Sydney , Australia , fainted again a few days later while at a friend's house.
"I remember screaming out before an ambulance came," she told the Heart Research Institute (HRI). "My heart was failing and I had two cardiac arrests. "At age 13, I ended up on life support and I had very little chance of survival.
" Her traumatised dad Philip watched the second cardiac arrest happen and Scarlett remembers yelling out: "Help me, help me, I don't want to die." Watching their daughter be placed on an ECMO, which allows the blood to bypass the heart and lungs, her parents said they were terrified. But the worst was yet to come.
Suddenly, they were given a devastating deadline. "They told us we have two options: we can turn off her life support and let her die, or we can try for a heart transplant," her mum Amanda told the HRI. "They said we had 14 days, otherwise Scarlett would be too far gone.
" Speaking to 7Life this week, she added: "Every night we would cry. It was another day gone, another day without a heart." The family endured a heart-wrenching eight-day wait before a donor was finally found.
Scarlett then underwent a gruelling 12-hour operation, but the transplant was successful and she survived. Her recovery was "difficult and traumat.
