Kids & Family

Massapequa School Teacher Saved from Rare Heart Virus at St. Francis Hospital

Enzamaria Grimaudo, 30, of Massapequa, was treated for a potentially deadly heart virus at St. Francis Hospital where doctors and nurses worked for four hours to get her heart pumping.

“Please don’t let me die,” said Enzamaria Grimaudo, of Massapequa, before going into cardiac arrest. The 30-year-old schoolteacher clutched at a nurse as she began to turn blue. “Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “We won’t.”

For the next four hours, doctors and nurses at St. Francis Hospital, New York State’s only specialty designated cardiac center, worked to get Enzamaria’s heart pumping again. “I have a 30-year-old daughter myself, so this case had a big impact on me,” said Edward Lundy, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon who tended to Enzamaria.

She was diagnosed with the potentially deadly heart virus called viral myocarditis, which, according to the Myocarditis Foundation, afflicts an estimated several thousand patients per year – generally otherwise healthy people. It’s believed that 5-20% of all cases of sudden death in young adults are due to myocarditis, according to the Foundation. 

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Cardiologists inserted a tiny Impella pump through a catheter to keep Enzamaria’s heart beating before Dr. Lundy surgically implanted an ECMO cardiac assist device to take over the function of her heart and lungs. It took a week before her heart began to function again on its own.

“It was as if she was struck by lightning and was dead,” said Dr. Lundy. “But now she is back to being normal and healthy again.”

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