Woman fights for her life after collapsing at the gym

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG/Gray News) - An Ohio community is stepping up to help a woman who is in the fight of her life.

Sarah Fitzgerald has been hospitalized for weeks after being diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM.

Fitzgerald, who is 23 years old and an EMT, was working to become an X-ray technician when her world was turned upside down in June. But she has made remarkable progress.

On June 24, she was working out at the gym when she realized something was wrong, so she called her mother, Leah Vossen.

By the time Leah Vossen and Fitzgerald’s father got to the gym, Fitzgerald had collapsed.

“We had no idea what was happening. We didn’t know if she was having a heart attack or stroke or what was going on,” Leah Vossen said. “She had stopped breathing a couple of times in the ambulance and was intubated before she got to the emergency room. They did a CT and we were all in the waiting room. And so when the doctor showed us the scan, you could see it was a massive bleed.”

Fitzgerald was diagnosed with AVM, which caused massive bleeding on her brain. She was rushed into surgery.

“Her arteries and veins are just connected instead of having capillaries there. The arteries are high pressure, the veins are low pressure and all that going into the veins, the veins can’t handle it, and it ruptures,” Leah Vossen said. “Watching your child struggle every day and be in pain every day is, I can’t really explain that. If you’re a mom, you know.”

Fitzgerald spent more than a month in the neuro ICU before moving to a critical illness recovery hospital.

“In the course of her six weeks in the neuro ICU, she had six surgeries,” Fitzgerald’s aunt Michelle Vossen said. “Because they took a big portion of her brain out, which impacts her motor skills, doctors have told us it will be time and therapy.”

Fitzgerald is conscious and aware of what is happening around her but she is unable to talk. Leah Vossen taught Fitzgerald simple sign language as a child, never knowing the impact it would have.

“A couple days after her first surgery, I was thinking how we could try to communicate with her because she had a tube in her mouth and we didn’t know any of her deficits or anything like that. So, I walked to her bedside and said, ‘Can you do sign language?’ She lifted her hand and said yes. I was like, this is big! That is how we’ve been communicating,” Leah Vossen said.

While the road to recovery will be long and challenging, Fitzgerald has many people walking alongside her.

“We’re talking months, years. We don’t know what her baseline is. This is just going to be her new normal, and we don’t know where we are just yet,” Leah Vossen said.

Fitzgerald’s family said they hope to raise awareness about AVM and help raise money to cover medical expenses. They have started what’s known as Sarah’s Fight Club.

On Sept. 7, there will be a benefit event at Pat and Dandy’s on Laskey Road in Toledo, from 2 to 8 p.m.