Kim Kostka almost did not meet her first grandchild.
Kim smoked cigarettes for a long time – around 30 years or more. In 2021, she switched to an electronic cigarette and started vaping, thinking it was more palatable. “I felt like it was more socially acceptable – they make cheesecake flavor, blueberry, cotton candy, and I fell victim,” Kim recalled.
One day early in March 2023, Kim noticed she was feeling a bit run-down. She looked and felt tired. She struggled to catch her breath. The Kostkas suspected a respiratory infection. But she became increasingly confused and lethargic. Her husband recalls one night she asked him: “Phil, did you put the sand in the frames?” He later understood this was due to hypoxemia – not enough oxygen was reaching her brain and other organs.
Kim doesn’t remember the rain on the night of March 10, 2023. She doesn’t remember asking Phil to go buy a humidifier in case it might help her breathe easier. She doesn’t remember wandering around the house, sweating and muttering. But Phil does.
“I felt her get out of bed about three in the morning,” he said. “She’s got a towel on her head, trying to cool off, and I just heard one word: ‘hot’.” He knew something was very wrong and it was time to get help.
Phil got his wife dressed, helped her into the car, and drove toward Kingman Regional Medical Center. He remembers her seeming to nod in and out of consciousness while he urged her to stay awake. Still minutes away from the hospital, Kim stopped breathing.
A Second Chance at Life
Phil pulled in near the ambulance bay, flashing his lights, honking the horn, and shouting for help. A medical professional checked for a pulse. When she could not detect one, she pulled Kim out of the car to start CPR immediately – right there on the ground outside the emergency department. Almost instantly a team of doctors and nurses appeared to revive her.
“I had the right staff waiting for me to get there it seems,” said Kim. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Phil added.
Kim had suffered a respiratory arrest and resulting cardiac arrest. She was without oxygen for nearly four minutes before they made it to the emergency room.
Once the emergency department staff got Kim inside, they had to revive her again more than once.
Nurses took Phil into a quiet room to wait.
When the doctor came in, he told him Kim’s lungs were extensively damaged. Confused and overwhelmed, Phil braced for the worst.
After a CT scan of Kim’s lungs, pulmonologist Ordessia Charran, MD, showed the results to Phil. “She told me normal lung tissue is dark, and Kim’s lungs were completely white.”
Phil tried to understand how his wife got to that point. Charran asked, “Does she vape?”
“Yeah, she vapes,” answered Phil.
According to Charran, Kim was suffering from what is known as EVALI, or e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury.
“Her lungs were completely filled with inflammation from this disease process,” said Charran. “It is not something to take lightly.”
In severe cases like Kim’s, patients must be placed on a ventilator, and sometimes even ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). Once the patient recovers from EVALI, prognosis is good, providing they never vape again. Even intermittent or rare use of vaping or e-cigarettes can lead to this condition, said Charran.
Hakuna Matata
Kim spent a week in the ICU, comatose. Phil stayed by her side. Loved ones sent cards that he read out loud, because he knew in his heart she could hear him. When Kim came off the ventilator, she did not know where she was or why. She couldn’t remember her own mother at first. But she knew Phil – and she told him she wanted to sing. Phil obliged and pulled out his phone to put on a song. Her request: “Hakuna Matata” from “The Lion King.”
She had never seen the movie, but somehow it was fitting.
Kim faced a long recovery once she was discharged. She felt the effects of her trauma in every bit of her body, from broken ribs to headaches and weakness. Each baby step was its own accomplishment. Phil bought her a microphone so she could sing as much as she wanted. It was healing for her in many ways.
Doctors told her it would take about two years for her to get back to “normal.” Kim used this as fuel. She pushed herself, belted out karaoke songs, and rebuilt her strength.
Months later, Kim sent a letter of thanks to Kingman Regional Medical Center. It read, in part:
Please convey my deepest gratitude to every member of your team who played a role in my care, from the ER staff who revived me multiple times to the dedicated medical professionals who continued to provide exceptional care during my hospital stay. Each individual’s contribution, no matter how small, was instrumental in saving my life and facilitating my recovery.
Phil and Kim are now a year and a half beyond their horrifying ordeal. They have gone back to visit with several of the doctors, nurses, and medical professionals involved in Kim’s life-saving care. “I’m thankful for my life and for all those doctors and nurses. They are heroes,” said Kim.
As for what comes next, “I want to just grow old with my husband and my grandbaby,” she said.
To hear the couple tell their story in their own words, visit youtube.com/@KRMCArizona.