Scary: Woman recounts how she almost died on her wedding day

Jill was teenager when she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis - a chronic disease of the large intestine that can cause inflammation and severe abdominal pain.

A newlywed woman is telling the story of how she also died on her wedding night after the festivities were over.

 

When Jill Haddad Hawkins and her husband, John got married last September, the wedding photos taken only showed the good part of the wedding but all wasn't well on that day.

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"It's really hard to come to terms with the fact that I could have died on my wedding night," "But that's the reality."

She remembers waking up for her wedding, sick to her stomach.

"I just kind of thought, something feels a little weird, but it's probably just nerves," Hawkins said.

 

Jill was teenager when she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis - a chronic disease of the large intestine that can cause inflammation and severe abdominal pain.

Her condition was corrected with several major surgeries then she believed everything was over. "I was, you know, moving forward thinking it was kind of behind me," she said.

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Years later the condition had come back but the pain didn't start till her wedding day. She was barely able to make it through her vows and the photo session at the reception.

 

"I was just so sick," she said.

Jill was immediately taken in an ambulance from the reception in Wellfleet to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. She was quickly transferred to Tufts Medical Center for emergency surgery.

"It actually was very complicated, she had a twist in her intestines which cut off the blood supply to that section of the intestine. She could have died from that," said James Yoo, chief of colorectal surgery at Tufts Medical Center.

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Dr. Yoo said he was amazed she was able to make it through the ceremony.

"For this to happen to anybody is a devastating event, to have it happen on your wedding day, it's almost unbelievable," he said.

 

Yoo confirmed that wedding anxiety couldn't have triggered it.

"Nothing could have precipitated this," he said. "I think it was just bad luck."