A Colorado Woman Canceled a Doctor's Appointment, and It ‘Saved’ Her Life. Here’s How...

“I wasn't going to do anything but stay home, and probably would have died here," the Denver resident recalled in an interview about the fateful call

For one Colorado woman, deciding not to go to the doctor saved her life.

After waking up tired one morning in December 2025, Launice Freeny-Brown decided to cancel a doctor’s appointment she had scheduled for later that day, the Denver resident recalled in a video interview shared by NBC affiliate 12News and WDIV.

"I woke up about 4 a.m. in the morning and I felt my chest pulsating and I felt really exhausted,” Freeny-Brown recalled in the interview. "And when I woke up, I said I have to go down and cancel that appointment.”

Within two hours, things had gotten far more serious. “So about 6 o'clock, I couldn't put one foot before the other one," she recalled.

When she called to cancel her appointment, Freeny-Brown was connected with Kim Headley, who works in patient contact care at Intermountain Health — and the healthcare professional could tell something was wrong on the other end of the line.

That morning on the phone, Freeny-Brown “was talking and she was really short of breath,” Headley recalled in an interview shared by 12News and WDIV. “She would have to say a word or two, and then she would have to take a breath again, and I finally go, 'Are you short of breath?' And she's like, 'Well, you know, I kinda am.' "

Then, Freeny-Brown revealed that she was not just having trouble breathing, but also “the worst chest pain of her life,” Headley remembered. She was having a heart attack.

Headley had “had one other person tell me that before,” the healthcare professional recalled, “and I'm like, 'Oh no, she needs to talk to [a registered nurse].' "

So she put Freeny-Brown on hold and tried to connect her with a nurse named Tonya Hopper — but the caller could no longer be heard. After she was unable to connect with Freeny-Brown's emergency contacts, Headley decided to call 911.

Freeny-Brown “never made it to me,” the nurse said. But thankfully, medical professionals made it to her — and within minutes.

Recalling what happened next, Freeny-Brown said, "There was banging on my front door, and I said, 'Who is that at my front door?' And I looked up, it was the paramedics and the fire department.”

Freeny-Brown got the help she needed, thanks to Headley’s intuition and quick thinking. “I really do appreciate her because she saved my life,” she said, per 12News and WDIV. “At that moment, I didn’t know I was having a heart attack.”

Three months after the fateful call, Freeny-Brown met not only Headley, but also Hopper, to thank them. “I am so grateful and I appreciate you two so much,” she said, per the outlets. “And I owe you my life.”

Had it not been for them, Freeny-Brown said she thinks that day would have gone very differently — in other words, she may not have lived to tell the story.

"Something is wrong, but I wasn’t going to go to the doctor,” she said. “I wasn't going to do anything but stay home, and probably would have died here.”

Source: By Bailey RichardsBailey Richards