2025 Go Red for Women Class of Survivors: Heather Baker
Heather Baker was a healthy woman in her late 20s when she suffered sudden cardiac arrest. While waiting for help, co-workers used CPR and AED skills they had recently learned to save her life. Now 35, she has taught CPR to more than 5,000 people.
In 2018, Heather Baker was a healthy 28-year-old in her first year as a school district curriculum director. Despite waking up with a terrible headache, she was not going to miss work.
She drove 50 minutes through winding country roads near her Illinois home to attend multiple meetings at different locations. Everything seemed fine until Heather returned to her school.
“I was laughing, joking with my colleagues and suddenly I felt really dizzy,” she said. “I tried to say, ‘I don’t feel well,’ but I wasn’t making sense. I took one step and fell face first into the table and dropped dead to the floor of sudden cardiac arrest.”
Some thought she was having a seizure. Fortunately, multiple school staffers had been trained in CPR by the American Heart Association a month earlier. They called 911 immediately.
Bill Faller, who was superintendent at the time, recognized from the training that her labored gasping was agonal breathing, a critical sign of a life-threatening emergency such as cardiac arrest. He started Hands-Only CPR. Middle school principal Tim King used an automated external defibrillator, or AED, to shock her heart three times. Heather was alive, but not conscious, when the fire department arrived 15 minutes later.
At the hospital, she was placed in a medically induced coma. Her family was told she would likely have brain damage and be unable to walk or talk because of the oxygen lost.
“Very fortunately, I did wake up on my own the next morning, sassy as ever, telling jokes,” she said.
She was diagnosed with drug-induced long QT syndrome, a disorder of the heart’s electrical system. It was likely due to a medication that in some people can cause a depletion of potassium, which is important in guiding the heart’s electrical system, and, in this case, affected her heart rhythm. Heather received a subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator, which is a device that regulates abnormally fast heart rhythms. She spent a week in the hospital and a week recovering at home.
“Then I returned to school and found myself back in the same room that I had died in two weeks earlier,” Heather said.
She now had to work in a place with so many triggers.
“Returning to life after sudden cardiac arrest is a mixed bag of emotions,” Heather said. “First and foremost, there’s gratitude. Very few people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, so I have immense gratitude for the people who saved my life. But upon returning to work, I was absolutely, utterly terrified. To go about your day, living life normally and drop-dead mid-sentence, unlocks a new fear that I didn’t know was possible.”
Her co-workers rallied around her, and she started sharing her lifesaving message.
Heather became a certified CPR instructor and has trained more than 5,000 people. Now 35 and an elementary school principal, she completed her doctorate and published research on cardiac-emergency preparedness in schools. She also worked with the American Heart Association on a bill that was signed into law in Illinois that requires schools to have cardiac-emergency response plans and for staff to learn Hands-Only CPR and AED use.
“I was so lucky that the people in my building, coincidentally, had learned CPR and knew what to do,” she said.
Heather draws inspiration from her own family’s history. Her maternal grandmother had cardiovascular disease, and her maternal grandfather died at age 50 after having a massive heart attack while driving.
Those relationships motivated her while pregnant with her only child. Easton, now 2, was born with a rare heart condition.
“There was a lot of special care taken with both of us throughout my pregnancy,” she said, adding that he is now thriving. “Helping him navigate his own heart journey, has been a really proud experience for me.”
Heather said she knows how lucky she is because, so few bystanders are trained or willing to perform CPR, especially on a woman.
“As a society that can’t be acceptable anymore,” she said. “Everybody has to vow to care for one another and keep each other alive. I do this in honor of those lost to sudden cardiac arrest. Hopefully in the future, we won’t have families losing children or loved ones that way.”
HEALTH CARE DISCLAIMER: This site and its services do not constitute the practice of medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always talk to your health care provider for diagnosis and treatment, including your specific medical needs. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem or condition, please contact a qualified health care professional immediately. If you are in the United States and experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or call for emergency medical help immediately. In such an emergency, wait for an ambulance rather than driving to the hospital.
In 2018, Heather Baker was a healthy 28-year-old in her first year as a school district curriculum director. Despite waking up with a terrible headache, she was not going to miss work.
She drove 50 minutes through winding country roads near her Illinois home to attend multiple meetings at different locations. Everything seemed fine until Heather returned to her school.
“I was laughing, joking with my colleagues and suddenly I felt really dizzy,” she said. “I tried to say, ‘I don’t feel well,’ but I wasn’t making sense. I took one step and fell face first into the table and dropped dead to the floor of sudden cardiac arrest.”
Some thought she was having a seizure. Fortunately, multiple school staffers had been trained in CPR by the American Heart Association a month earlier. They called 911 immediately.
Bill Faller, who was superintendent at the time, recognized from the training that her labored gasping was agonal breathing, a critical sign of a life-threatening emergency such as cardiac arrest. He started Hands-Only CPR. Middle school principal Tim King used an automated external defibrillator, or AED, to shock her heart three times. Heather was alive, but not conscious, when the fire department arrived 15 minutes later.
At the hospital, she was placed in a medically induced coma. Her family was told she would likely have brain damage and be unable to walk or talk because of the oxygen lost.
“Very fortunately, I did wake up on my own the next morning, sassy as ever, telling jokes,” she said.
She was diagnosed with drug-induced long QT syndrome, a disorder of the heart’s electrical system. It was likely due to a medication that in some people can cause a depletion of potassium, which is important in guiding the heart’s electrical system, and, in this case, affected her heart rhythm. Heather received a subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator, which is a device that regulates abnormally fast heart rhythms. She spent a week in the hospital and a week recovering at home.
“Then I returned to school and found myself back in the same room that I had died in two weeks earlier,” Heather said.
She now had to work in a place with so many triggers.
“Returning to life after sudden cardiac arrest is a mixed bag of emotions,” Heather said. “First and foremost, there’s gratitude. Very few people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, so I have immense gratitude for the people who saved my life. But upon returning to work, I was absolutely, utterly terrified. To go about your day, living life normally and drop-dead mid-sentence, unlocks a new fear that I didn’t know was possible.”
Her co-workers rallied around her, and she started sharing her lifesaving message.
Heather became a certified CPR instructor and has trained more than 5,000 people. Now 35 and an elementary school principal, she completed her doctorate and published research on cardiac-emergency preparedness in schools. She also worked with the American Heart Association on a bill that was signed into law in Illinois that requires schools to have cardiac-emergency response plans and for staff to learn Hands-Only CPR and AED use.
“I was so lucky that the people in my building, coincidentally, had learned CPR and knew what to do,” she said.
Heather draws inspiration from her own family’s history. Her maternal grandmother had cardiovascular disease, and her maternal grandfather died at age 50 after having a massive heart attack while driving.
Those relationships motivated her while pregnant with her only child. Easton, now 2, was born with a rare heart condition.
“There was a lot of special care taken with both of us throughout my pregnancy,” she said, adding that he is now thriving. “Helping him navigate his own heart journey, has been a really proud experience for me.”
Heather said she knows how lucky she is because, so few bystanders are trained or willing to perform CPR, especially on a woman.
“As a society that can’t be acceptable anymore,” she said. “Everybody has to vow to care for one another and keep each other alive. I do this in honor of those lost to sudden cardiac arrest. Hopefully in the future, we won’t have families losing children or loved ones that way.”
HEALTH CARE DISCLAIMER: This site and its services do not constitute the practice of medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always talk to your health care provider for diagnosis and treatment, including your specific medical needs. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem or condition, please contact a qualified health care professional immediately. If you are in the United States and experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or call for emergency medical help immediately. In such an emergency, wait for an ambulance rather than driving to the hospital.
