A 23-year-old woman was saved from a life-threatening blood clot in Lviv

In Lviv, doctors effectively pulled a young patient back from a critical condition; a rare form of pulmonary embolism had almost completely blocked blood flow to her lungs, and any further delay could have cost her her life.

The story of 23-year-old Oksana Panas from the Lviv region began with what, at first glance, seemed like common symptoms—sudden shortness of breath and pain in her side, which doctors initially mistook for intercostal neuralgia. However, her condition did not improve over time, and the young woman was forced to seek help from specialists at St. Luke’s Hospital, part of Lviv’s First Medical Association.

It was there that cardiologists made a shocking diagnosis—pulmonary embolism with a so-called “saddle thrombus,” in which a large, saddle-shaped blood clot blocks the branching point of the artery and cuts off blood flow to the lungs.

Doctors note that at the time of hospitalization, the vessels were approximately 90% blocked, and any delay could have led to complete blockage and instant death. “This is a critical, life-threatening condition in which a large, saddle-shaped blood clot blocks the point where the artery branches to supply blood to each of the lungs,” the doctors explained.

After the diagnosis was made, a team of cardiologists and anesthesiologists urgently performed thrombolysis—a procedure involving the administration of drugs to dissolve the clot—which yielded positive results and stabilized the patient’s condition.

Later, the doctors identified the root cause of the dangerous condition—hereditary thrombophilia, that is, a congenital predisposition of the body to form blood clots, which the young woman had previously been unaware of. “Simply put, this is a tendency for blood clots to form in the blood vessels, which Oksana had no idea she had,” the hospital explained.

After five days of treatment, the patient was discharged from the hospital and referred to a hematologist for further observation, and Oksana herself has already thanked the doctors for managing to literally pull her back from a critical condition.