She ran the Buenos Aires Half Marathon and died after crossing the finish line, but they saved her: “I was dead for 22 minutes”

“I’m fine, processing everything. Alive and very grateful. I was 22 minutes dead”. With those words, Manuela Bugueño Ipinza, a young Chilean athlete who suffered sudden death after crossing the finish line on Sunday in the Buenos Aires Half Marathon, summed up before THE NATION its sensations.The Ñandú Association, organizer of the competition that brought together more than 20,000 runners, had briefly reported yesterday: “On Sunday, the Chilean runner Manuela Bugueño, 30 years old, fainted when crossing the finish line in a time of 1h28m. She was quickly treated by the organization’s medical team and resuscitation tasks were carried out.”In coordination with the Urban Monitoring Center of the Buenos Aires government, the transfer of an ambulance to the Fernández Hospital was expeditedwhere his attention was completed, while he kept in direct contact with his family ”, added the official information that he wanted to expand this medium without success.Manuela BugueñoIn dialogue with LA NACION from the German Hospital, where she remains hospitalizedManuela told in detail what happened on Sunday at 8:30 in the morning after crossing the finish line in 118th place out of more than 5,000 women who participated in the competition.“I have been running for more than 10 years and I have been running longer distance for about five years now. I had already run a half marathon and it had never happened to me and now it happened to me”, Manuela began her story and continued telling how the sudden death picture was: “I crossed the finish line, I fainted, they understood me at once. That was what really saved my life, because if the entire emergency team, who were in charge of this, had not been there, I would not be telling this. This is true, because it was all very fast, a very good team, they did very good compressions, a very good job. It was 22 minutes of cardiac massage and defibrillation. In other words, basically I was dead for 22 minutes and then they took me to the hospital very quickly. The last thing I remember is passing out and then waking up in the hospital emergency room”.Manuela, who is 30 years old, is a doctor in her country and she knows what she is talking about when she highlights the rapid action of medical care, even with the complications of her condition, where the defibrillator was not the key to revive her: “I first had a ventricular tachycardia, in which the AED can be used because it is shockable. But then I had pulseless electrical activity. That can’t be defibrillated, so They gave me adrenaline and other medication. With that they got me out of unemployment”.Manuela BugueñoI am very lucky because there was a cardiologist and a whole team. Thanks to good management, they got me out of unemployment. Not everyone is that lucky. They behaved very well at the Fernández Hospital there and also here. Truly, I am shocked and grateful. I am from the health area, I know that it is not like that everywhere and I am really very grateful because I owe them more than life”, the runner said excitedly. About her current state, she said: “The electroencephalogram does not show any neurological lesion and, so far, the heart is normal in all studies. At Hospital Fernández the attention was incredible, I am very grateful. Today at dawn they transferred me here to the German Hospital where I am going to have to spend two or three days, they don’t know exactly, because they have to connect a device to my heart that it controls to see if any other signal appears because, apparently, it is an electrical problem of the heart.” Since 2018, the Ñandú Association has been implementing a cardio-assistance plan with automatic external defibrillators in each race. On this occasion, it was also carried out in compliance with the national law for the comprehensive prevention of sudden death 27,159, regulated on July 15. Law 27,150 dec. 402/2022 designed by Emerteam with the support of EMERGENCIAS SALUD and KYNET that involved 27 Automatic External Defibrillators and 14 cardio-defibrillators in Mobile Intensive Care Units, adding a total of 41 defibrillators in circuit”, they indicated from the organization.