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Bella English

Family’s silence nearly cost fitness instructor her life

Dianne Kane-McGunigle, shown with twin sister Denise, is a spokeswoman for a campaign to raise awareness about heart disease among women.The Boston Globe/Boston Globe

In 1974, Dianne Kane was voted the most outstanding girl athlete at South Boston High School, where she was captain of the basketball, volleyball, and track and field teams. She was a point guard and sprinter who also loved softball, tennis, and ice skating.

In college, Kane majored in physical education and was later certified as a fitness instructor. A Quincy resident, she has run 17 marathons. She is a longtime fitness trainer and instructor, and for four years owned a health club in Dorchester. During the past 20 years, she has taught thousands of fitness classes.

“I was born kinetic,’’ says Kane-McGunigle, whose husband, Joe, is a Quincy police officer. “I never sat still.’’ In addition, she says she has always eaten a healthy diet and never had a “bad physical exam.’’

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Two years ago, she was the oldest person taking a bodypump certification test, and one of the few who passed, which meant she could now teach the intense weight-training class. On Jan. 18, 2010, she was teaching a class when she felt a slight numbness in her arm and experienced mild nausea. She shrugged it off, finished the class, and went home.

The next morning, as she got out of bed, she fell back as if she’d been punched in the chest. She ignored the chest spasms, thinking she’d done too many push-ups the day before. “I was going to work,’’ she says. “I had classes to teach that day.’’

But when she got downstairs, she keeled over. “I took two steps and I literally hit the floor holding my chest, just like you see in the movies,’’ says Kane-McGunigle. Her husband rushed her to a nearby emergency room, where they waited for two hours while staffers, some rolling their eyes, told her she was having a panic attack.

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A doctor finally arrived and did an electrocardiogram. “I’m sorry,’’ he told her. “You have just suffered a massive heart attack.’’ Two weeks later, Kane-McGunigle turned 53.

Because she is nicer than I am, she asked me not to name the area hospital that nearly did her in. From there, she was sent to Boston Medical Center, which, she says, saved her life.

Doctors there inserted a stent into the main artery to her heart, and she spent five days in intensive care. “When people have this, they call it a widow-maker, because 96 percent of them drop dead. I beat the odds and I really believe it was because of my healthy lifestyle,’’ she says.

Still, the damage was done; her heart muscle is seriously weakened. She must wear a monitor and keep her heart rate, and her cholesterol, to a certain level. She will be on meds the rest of her life. She is no longer teaching but does work out several times a week, circuit training and walking the treadmill, often with her twin sister, Denise, who she says has helped her through recovery.

Her main goal these days is sparing other women a similar experience. “Every time I hear a story like mine, I cringe and get mad and frustrated,’’ says Kane-McGunigle. “The two most important things are check out your family history and learn those warning signs.’’

She did not know her own family history - that three uncles and both her grandfathers died from the “widow-maker.’’

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Her mother was also nearly 53 when she had a heart attack. But no one ever spoke of any of it.

“She was a tough Irish mom - she’d put the pill under her tongue and then go cook dinner. It’s just nuts to me, but in these big Irish families you don’t know what people die of - it’s not talked about.’’

In one sense, Kane-McGunigle says it’s a blessing that it happened to her; she has eight siblings who have now all been checked out, and her two grown daughters are healthy “but will have to watch themselves forever.’’

After the heart attack, one of her sisters, a trauma nurse, suggested she attend an American Heart Association event, where she would meet other women like herself. “I was two weeks post-heart attack and could barely walk,’’ she recalls. But she enjoyed it and made new friends.

Last year, she attended an AHA event in Natick, where women were telling their stories on video. Little did Kane-McGunigle know that it was a casting call for AHA spokeswomen. The heart association loved her story: being a fitness professional and still suffering an attack.

Kane-McGunigle was chosen as one of six national spokeswomen for the association’s Go Red For Women mission to save women’s lives through education and research. For months, she has been working on a massive public awareness campaign that culminates on Friday - her 55th birthday.

It’s called National Wear Red Day to bring attention to heart disease, the number-one killer of women. “Nationally, about 8 million women are living with heart disease,’’ says Kathleen Parente, the American Heart Association’s director of communications for Greater Boston.

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Parente says that Kane-McGunigle’s story was chosen from hundreds. “Dianne’s story defied the stereotype of a heart disease survivor,’’ Parente says. “She was young, very fit, and took great care of her health. Dianne has an important message for all women . . . and her passion for doing so is truly saving lives.’’

Kane-McGunigle has been recruiting restaurants, banks, companies, police and fire departments, and health clubs to join the cause, with employees wearing red that day and each donating $5 to the heart association. She had signed up 3,700 people by last Wednesday.

“I haven’t had anyone say no,’’ she says. On Friday, she plans to hire a driver and personally thank each of the 32 places that said yes.

Besides volunteering with the American Heart Association, Kane-McGunigle is also teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation at Notre Dame Academy in Hingham and elsewhere because “the chances are someone you know will have a heart attack.’’

The girl who was born kinetic and never sat still has her eye on the half-marathon being held by the heart association in New Orleans this spring.

She hopes to walk it with another Go Red volunteer who had a heart transplant.

“This will be a big deal for the two of us,’’ says Kane-McGunigle. “If I can just get medical clearance.’’

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Bella English lives in Milton. She can be reached at english@globe.com.