Fitness instructor at Premier Health & Fitness Center isn’t just a title for Beth Culley; it means she gets to do what she loves.
Beth teaches a variety of classes from spin to core for students from all walks of life, ages and genders. She is known as a powerhouse motivator who inspires her students to keep pressing toward their health and fitness goals.
“I like people to have fun,” Beth said. “They’ll come back if you have fun with them. The engagement I give them, they feed off that, and they love that. I love, love what I do, and I love my students.”
That feeling is mutual for Beth’s students who describe her as “inspirational” and “positive.” For them, she is a force who never stops.
“She doesn’t let people approach life at 50%, and she expects people to be able to push beyond,” Kim Koutnik, one of Beth’s students said, “but if not, she helps them.”
It’s difficult to imagine someone like Beth slowing down, but one Tuesday morning in April, an often-deadly cardiac event stopped the unstoppable Beth. She was teaching her classes like any other day. She started with her spin class at 5:30 am and felt great. Then she went to train a new client, and after that, she hustled upstairs to instruct her core class.
She went through the ab exercises as normal, but when she was lying on the ground on her stomach, guiding her class through the superman pose, there was a slight pressure in her chest and a sudden pop.
Immediately Beth thought, “That’s not good. What was that?”
She started to feel dizzy and instructed the class to keep going as she started to feel weaker. Beth tried to go back into the position and couldn’t. As she started turning pale, she decided to bring the class to a close early.
When everyone left, Beth struggled to walk out of the room, using the assistance of the wall to hold her up. She made her way downstairs, where she told her colleagues she wasn’t feeling well and had to go home. When Beth got into her car, she debated whether she should go home or to the hospital. Beth knew something happened and didn’t feel right going home, so she drove herself to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare’s (TMH) Emergency Center - Northeast.
As soon as Beth walked into the Emergency Center, she told staff she was having a heart attack, and they immediately got her to a room. The team worked quickly to get an IV started and tests going.
After triaging Beth, the staff rushed her in an ambulance to TMH’s main hospital, where the heart and vascular team is equipped to handle advanced cardiac care. Beth found out she was suffering from an aortic dissection, a serious condition caused by a tear in the inner layer of the body’s main artery (aorta). Blood rushes through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to split (dissect). If the blood goes through the outside aortic wall, aortic dissection is often deadly.
“When I saw her scan, there was no question that we had hours, not days. We had to go right now. This was her life,” Frank Gredler, MD, Beth’s cardiologist said.
Charles Murrah, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon, was on call that day, which Beth calls God’s blessing.
“He was amazing. I thank him for saving my life,” she said.
Dr. Murrah performed a repair of her aortic dissection by replacing the wall of the aorta. That meant cooling her body down to 23 degrees, cutting out her aorta and replacing it with a graft. This is not a common procedure, but something the Tallahassee Memorial heart team performs about once a month due to referrals sent to TMH from surrounding areas.
“The fact that she got very prompt and very correct care is the largest part of what saved her from what is regrettably either a very, very difficult hospital course, or a terminal event.” Dr. Gredler said.
The mortality rate for an acute type-one aortic dissection is 1% every hour after it happens, Dr. Murrah said. When it came to her recovery, he said, “Beth was a big part of her recovery. She took good care of herself. She had a lightning strike and was able to survive because she worked hard to get better.”
After four-five days in critical care, Beth was transitioned to a regular patient floor for a few more days before she was released to go home.
If she could do it all again, Beth said she would call an ambulance instead of driving herself to the hospital.
“That was a stupid thing to do. I was even going to go home to lay down, and I was told if I did, I would’ve been dead,” she said.
Some of the people in Beth’s fitness classes asked her why they should continue to work out if something like that happened to hear and she works out all the time. Her response was “Yes, but I survived, possibly because I do workout.”
Beth is grateful for the team at TMH for saving her and the support she had from family, coworkers, the community and friends.
“I love working with her,” Bob Culley, Beth’s brother said. “She motivates me and is just great to have around the gym with her positive attitude.”
Beth has two children, a daughter and son. Her daughter, who attends University of Florida, took the summer off school to take care of her mom during the long and painful road to recovery. Her son is now going to study nursing because of what Beth went through. He wants to be a physician’s assistant.
Beth is grateful she was able to celebrate another birthday in January and will be able to see her children graduate this year and take them on a cruise.
At Tallahassee Memorial, you and your heart have access to one of the most advanced heart and vascular programs in the Southeast. Our cardiovascular physicians perform more complex procedures and clinical research than any other program in our region. From Cardio-Oncology to Heart Surgery and everything in between, there’s no need to go anywhere else for advanced cardiovascular care. Visit TMH.ORG/Heart to learn more.
