On what seemed like an ordinary afternoon, 20-year-old Jazmin Garza, a fitness enthusiast from the United States, suddenly felt dizzy before collapsing and convulsing. Her boyfriend realized her heart had stopped and she was no longer breathing. Without hesitation, he performed CPR until paramedics arrived and used a defibrillator to revive her.

But this was only the beginning of her ordeal. On the way to the hospital, Jazmin’s heart stopped multiple times, at one point for as long as five minutes. Each cardiac arrest deprived her organs of oxygen, leaving her lungs, kidneys, and heart severely damaged. Doctors placed her on life support and warned her family: “She needs a miracle to survive and recover into the Jazmin we know.”

Life on the edge

Jazmin later recalled that the incident happened after she had tried an energy drink at the gym — something she normally avoided. “Not long after drinking it, I felt dizzy, pale, and then passed out,” she said. Her boyfriend initially suspected epilepsy, a condition he had never witnessed before.

At the hospital, doctors put Jazmin on three different machines: ECMO to oxygenate her blood, dialysis to help her kidneys, and another device to regulate oxygen levels. A defibrillator was also implanted in her chest to monitor her heart and deliver shocks if necessary. Despite extensive testing, the medical team could not pinpoint the exact cause of her sudden cardiac arrests.