10/08/2025
Tara was enjoying a trip to the water park with her husband, Tyler, and kids, Emerson and Declan, when she started to feel dizzy and sick. Her heart raced.
They decided to go home, but Tara wanted to stop at the restroom first. Emerson went, too, to keep an eye on her mother. Less than a minute later, Emerson was running back yelling, "Mom's on the ground."
Tyler found Tara inside a locked stall. He climbed over the top to unlock it and pulled Tara out. Her heart had stopped. She wasn't breathing.
He yelled for help. A lifeguard started to give Tara chest compressions until firefighters arrived and took over. They connected Tara to an automated external defibrillator, or AED. The third shock of the AED brought her back.
At the hospital, doctors were unable to determine what caused her heart to stop. She received an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD, that can shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.
Tara’s self-described "stubborn personality" helped her recovery, first in the hospital for more than two weeks and then for another 10 days at an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and through three months of outpatient rehab.
"I'm competitive with myself, so I decided I was going to be the best rehab student," Tara, a first-grade teacher, said. "As I tell my own students, progress is progress. You just keep plugging away."
Tara and Tyler both learned CPR and encourage others to get trained. "Just learn the moves," Tyler said.
Tara said they strive to live by the motto on the T-shirts she had made while raising money to help fight heart disease: "Enjoy every moment."
