A Texas teenager with a life-threatening heart condition spoke about his life in a video posted on YouTube days before his death. Ben Breedlove, 18, died on Christmas day, but the teenager left one last video about his life for more than 60,000 followers on YouTube, according to KXAN News in Austin.
Breedlove had been using several YouTube channels to talk about the effects of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes thick that makes it harder for blood to leave the heart. Using notecards as a visual aid, Breedlove talks about his condition and how it impacted his life.
“The first time I cheated death was when I was 4,” he wrote on one card. “I had a life-threatening seizure, scary right?” Breedlove talks about having a pacemaker installed and how his heart started to give him trouble again.
In 2011, Breedlove underwent a surgery to remove his tonsils, but during the surgery, he went into cardiac arrest, he wrote. “It was a miracle that they brought me back,” he wrote.
Breedlove’s final video message, which is split into two videos, has been viewed by nearly a million people. The 18-year-old signs off by saying, “Do you believe in Angels or God?” “I do,” he wrote.
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle