This harrowing video shows the moment a young woman with a rare heart condition dies for an entire minute.

Sara Brautigam has regular brushes with death and in one year was pronounced clinically dead 36 times.

The 21-year-old suffers from a combination of conditions, including Postural orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS), which make her heart stop beating.


She experiences rapid palpitations that regularly cause her heart to stop beating and her blood pressure to plummet to what doctors record as clinically dead.

On one occasion the attacks can last up to half an hour.

Sara Brautigam suffers from a rare, debilitating, heart condition (Picture: SWNS)

The alarming video was shot three-years-ago with the consent of Sara who has agreed for it to be released to highlight her condition.



She said: ‘In reality this was quite a mild attack. As you can see my heart rate is very up. Then you see me go limp and the doctors and nurses all crowd round.

‘They can’t give me CPR because CPR tires the heart out for no reason so it is pointless. When the heart fills up with blood again is when it begins beating again.

The 21-year-old is clinically dead in this video – filmed to highlight her condition (Picture: SWNS)

‘The blood tends to pool in my legs and the doors need to help feed it back to the heart.’

Sara from Doncaster, said each time her heart stops medics have to inflict pain on her to shock her into coming back to life.

She continued: ‘A lot of the time I’ll wake up with big bruises. On one occasion they ripped an acrylic nail off but that still didn’t make me flinch.’

Scars from medical procedures on her heart (Picture: SWNS)

Sara also suffers joint hypermobility syndrome which means her joints are more prone to injury and dislocation.

The two combined resulted in her visiting A&E a staggering 64 times in one year.

But Sara – who has canoed for Great Britain – says she is determined not to let the conditions hold her back and is now trying to make a life as a burlesque performer.

Sara’s implantable loop recorder which stops her from dying (Picture: SWNS)

She said: ‘I get asked it quite a lot, but there is definitely no bright light. Everything just goes black.

‘You can still hear things and there is a voice in my head that is still active and still conscious and it is trying to communicate with those around me. I can remember what people are saying when I black out but have no other awareness of what’s going on.’

Sara was pronounced clinically dead 36 times in 2012 but has since thrown herself into burlesque chair dancing which she said ‘has given me a new lease of life’.

What is PoTs? A condition caused by abnormal functioning of the nervous system. It’s associated ​with ​multiple symptoms and an excessive and sustained increase in heart rate. PoTS on its own does not cause a heart to stop beating, and it not associated with any alteration in life-expectancy. If a patient with PoTS were to develop such problems, it would not be explained by their PoTS, but would have to relate to a separate co-existing condition.

She added: ‘I’m determined not to let this beat me, joining the group has given me a life back.

‘It might kill me but at least I’d die happy, for me I’d rather live to the full rather than live longer and be wrapped up in cotton wool its all about quality or life.’



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