Mum-of-two Melissa Hartman bought back from the dead after suffering cardiac arrest
A young single mum was getting ready for a date when her heart suddenly stopped beating. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle.
Melissa Hartman was 31 years old when her heart suddenly stopped while she was getting ready for a date one August afternoon.
The mother-of-two had no idea that she had suffered a cardiac arrest and flatlined for 20 minutes after a coughing fit.
“I was a bit nervous for the date but not nervous enough to have a bloody cardiac arrest,” the now 35-year-old told The Advertiser.
Luckily, Ms Hartman organised for a friend to visit before her date and he arrived just as she collapsed.
“He found me on the floor, I had no pulse and had stopped breathing,” she said.
“He was straight onto the CPR.”
Paramedics arrived and administered seven shocks of a defibrillator and three rounds of adrenaline to stabilise Ms Hartman.
With a less than one per cent chance of survival, she was placed into an induced coma at Flinders Hospital for a week.
“For the first 48 hours, nobody expected me to survive at all,” she said.
Despite all odds, the Christie Downs woman made it.
But when she flatlined, on the floor her home she said she had a “death experience” and saw a “white light”.
“It was so bloody peaceful and calm and I wasn’t even tired, it was just amazing,” she said.
“That was a miracle in itself, not feeling exhausted and chronically fatigued.”
She said since being revived she’s attempted to feel that again.
Following her episode, Ms Hartman refers to the day as her “birthday”.
“I’ve come back for a reason,” she said.
She said by calling it her “birthday” it allows the people closest to her to feel better about it.
“Mum still has it in her mind, (as) when she got the call,” she said.
“It helps her heal.”
Eventually, when Ms Hartman was brought out of a coma she was transferred to ICU.
Doctors eventually discovered two benign brain tumours — which are still present.
She also spent six weeks in Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre where she learnt how to walk, talk, eat and read again after suffering a brain injury.
“After only a week in the coma, I’d lost everything — I had to learn who my kids were again,” she said.
Ms Hartman, who is a single mum, said her children, Ayla, 8 and Mason, 11, were the reason she pushed through rehabilitation.
She said she didn’t want to have a carer “raise” her children.
“If I didn’t have my kids, I’d still be in a bed in hospital now,” she said.
“I’m not going to have my kids watching me lay down and admit defeat.
“If I can come back from the dead, they can get up and clean their rooms.”
Ms Hartman, who lives with a hypoxic brain injury, is emceeing the Brain Injury South Australia launch event marking Brain Awareness Week on August 18, 2025.
She wants to spread awareness about the importance of learning CPR.
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Originally published as Mum-of-two Melissa Hartman bought back from the dead after suffering cardiac arrest
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