You can't dismiss her as an "anti-vaxxer" when she had TWO Pfizer shots.  A severe aortic dissection just 14 days after her second Pfizer vaccine led to emergency 12-hour aorta replacement surgery, organ failure, and lifelong complications. This is Ingi's very raw and very real survival story.

TRANSCRIPT:

Well, this is me. My name's Ingi and I had two lots of Pfizer vaccines and 14 days after the second vaccine, I got some severe sharp pain in my abdomen and I was taken to the emergency department on the Sunshine Coast Hospital. They found an aortic dissection. So the inside lining of my aorta had a massive tear in it. I was in hospital for about a week. Then I was sent home with lots of medication and I was told not to do too much.

Shortly after that, about two weeks after, I was brought back for a follow-up scan. And as it turned out above the dissection, a hematoma had developed. So that means it was very life-threatening. So they kept me in hospital.

They rushed me back in and I ended up having 12 hour surgery to replace a massive piece of my aorta from the renal arteries, including the renal arteries, down to the iliac branches. So I've got a scar from here down to here. I've been completely cut open.

During that process, I suffered multiple organ failure. So when I woke up after the surgery, I had nothing working and I was just hooked up to all these tubes keeping me alive. I spent two weeks in ICU and then onwards to a ward, and I spent a few weeks in hospital.

During that time, I was on very, very heavy drugs and medication to keep me going. I was very, very sick, very, very ill for that time. My kidneys were damaged. I had lots of fluid inside me. I had lots of fluid in my belly, that wouldn't go down because I had a damaged lymphatic system from the surgery as well. So I was really distorted. I was sick, nauseous, and in pain all through that time.

After a few weeks, I got to go home. Still very, very unwell. I was on dialysis through that time for a little while as well afterwards, because my kidney function was still really, really bad.

Today, I have quite a few problems from that. I've got a pulmonary embolism in my right lung, which blocks off a whole lobe of my lungs. And I have reduced kidney function. It's sitting around 40% at the moment, which is not so great. I don't need dialysis, but blood pressure is a little bit unstable and I do get tired really easily. I also have joint issues. I get pain in my joints, like autoimmune stuff. That sort of flares, comes and goes. I've never had anything like that before.

I do get chest tightness, chest pressure. They're still trying to figure out what's causing that. Initially, when all this happened, they found my heart was fully enlarged as well. So my heart was enlarged, but I never got a proper diagnosis.

The surgeon who looked after me initially and basically saved my life, he did report it to the TGA. This happened in July '21. He did report in November to the TGA, but I haven't heard anything from the TGA. No one's followed that up with me to try to figure anything out. 

I've had problems with people like hospital staff looking after me, admitting this was from the vaccine. They're avoiding it, asking any questions, mentioning if they just go blank and pretty much don't want to talk about it. But yeah, today I'm doing better. The road's been very much up and down. I have days when I'm feeling really depressed and sad.

Yeah, but I do what I can when I can, and I'm not going to stop sharing my story because I want to bring as much awareness to this as possible to hopefully prevent this happening to somebody else. 

Filmed on location in Queens Gardens, Brisbane, Australia.