Halloween scare: Torn artery causes grandmother’s heart attack

On Halloween morning in 2025, Carmen Scott was driving home from the grocery store when she doubled over at the wheel with intense stomach cramps.

She was sweating. Her head pounded. She thought she might vomit, black out – or both.

Minutes from her home in Kansas City, Kansas, Carmen pulled over and called her husband, Jerry.

“Stay where you are,” he told her. “I’ll come get you.”

Once home, Carmen emptied her stomach in the bathroom.

The last time she felt such intense pain in her abdomen, she ended up having her gallbladder removed.

This new pain felt like something else – something that left her wanting to do nothing more than lie on the cool bathroom floor.

“If you feel any worse, do not hesitate to go to the hospital,” her daughter, Samantha, said.

Pushing on through the pain

Carmen helped care for Samantha’s twins, Raeford and Wesley, then 2. Fearing this was a nasty stomach bug that she didn’t want them to catch, she isolated in her bedroom and slept on and off all day.

The family had long been looking forward to trick-or-treating. The boys were going to dress as firefighters, Samantha as fire and Carmen as a fire hose.

Instead, Carmen’s homemade fire hose costume hung in the closet while she rested.

Stomach pain spreads to her chest

The next morning, Carmen called her longtime friend Sallie LaBruzzo, a retired clinical learning laboratory coordinator. Sallie’s husband had been Carmen’s primary care doctor before he retired. Carmen told her that the stomach pain had migrated to her chest.

“I feel like I’m having a freakin’ heart attack,” she told Sallie.

“Go to the ER,” Sallie said.

Carmen wasn’t convinced it was an emergency. She was 58, and her blood pressure and cholesterol were under control. She walked regularly and did yoga.

So Carmen sipped a ginger ale in hopes it would settle her stomach and started putting away the skeleton statues she’d put out around the house.

While cleaning up, Carmen became so exhausted that she had to sit down. That’s when she knew something was very wrong.

In the emergency room, tests showed she’d had a heart attack. It was a Saturday, and the doctor said she would have to stay the weekend for observation and further testing.

A torn artery caused her heart attack

A cardiac catheterization showed that Carmen’s heart attack was caused by spontaneous coronary artery dissection, or SCAD.

SCAD happens when the wall of an artery that supplies blood to the heart suddenly tears. Blood can get trapped in the artery wall and narrow or block the artery. This can slow or cut off blood flow to the heart. SCAD most often affects women, and many people who experience it have few or no typical risk factors for heart disease.

Carmen’s doctor compared her artery tear to the width of a strand of hair. She didn't need a stent or other procedure, just medicine and time to heal.

Three weeks later, Carmen was walking and doing light yoga. She is continuing her cardiac rehabilitation, a medically supervised program that helps people recover after a heart attack. Her doctor said mild ongoing chest pain can happen after SCAD. Because people who have had SCAD are at high risk of a recurrence, it's important for her to know the warning signs of a heart attack and to call 911 right away if they happen.

Recovery after SCAD

Almost a year later, Carmen still wonders, “Is it tearing more?”

“Sometimes I feel like I walk on eggshells for my heart,” she said. “But at the same time I tell myself, ‘You’re strong.’”

Carmen is grateful doctors identified SCAD and treated her before her small tear got any worse.

“I’m very lucky, and I have a lot of people in my corner to thank,” she said. “You have to listen to your body, especially us moms and grandmas. We want to take care of everybody, and then we forget that, oh, this little pain in my chest, it might be something.”

Go Red for Women is an American Heart Association initiative designed to empower women to take charge of their heart health. Find links to resources and helpful advice on maintaining or improving heart health.

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