LI teen survives Friday the 13th horror stroke and brain, open-heart surgeries

Friday the 13th lived up to its notorious rep for a Long Island teen — who suffered a stroke that day in December, leading her to need brain and open-heart surgeries.“I was on a call with my boyfriend, and he said, ‘You’re slurring your words,’ ” recalled Evelin Acosta, then 19, to The Post.“In the morning, my parents told me my smile was off.“I didn’t think anything of it, and they didn’t, either,” Acosta said.But the Brentwood woman, now 20, said she was having a stroke Dec.

13, and she had to have multiple critical surgeries during her five-week stay at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore to survive.“When I came to the hospital … I had to get a wheelchair because I couldn’t even walk,” she recalled of the “really scary” moment.Her stroke, a highly uncommon event in young people, was brought on by lupus, which she was diagnosed with in 2021.Complications from the illness caused a blood clot to form and cut off circulation to the right side of her brain, according to Dr.Richard Jung, the Northwell hospital’s associate director of neuroendovascular surgery.“It would be like if a tractor-trailer T-boned and completely blocked up all three lanes on the Southern State [Parkway],” Jung told The Post.“She was doe-eyed and absolutely scared about what was happening to her,” he said of Ascota at the time.Jung and his team had to snake a catheter up to her brain from the femoral artery in her leg to clear the significant blockage in a rapid, 15-minute procedure.Things initially seemed to be successful –until the doc noticed a small amount of bleeding in her brain minutes after, which could have caused paralysis or death.But against the odds, Acosta’s body healed itself.“I would say this was an absolute miracle and a little bit — a lot — of fortune,” Jung said.But although the immediate danger was over, the neurological procedure revealed an issue in Acosta’s cardiovascular system that meant she needed an o...