Tricia Siliano, center, is pictured at the Pittsburgh Heart Walk 2022 with friends and family. Siliano, of Cranberry Township, suffered a heart attack in 2021 caused by spontaneous coronary artery dissection. Last week she was named winner of the 2023 Greater Pittsburgh Woman of Impact Award by the American Heart Association for her efforts to educate women on heart disease. She will receive the award later this month at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh. Submitted photo

CRANBERRY TWP — On March 6, 2021, resident Tricia Siliano had little reason to fear a heart attack.

She had been an active primary school teacher for more than 20 years, the mother of three healthy boys and a vegetarian to boot.

And, when it happened anyway, she was simply sorting her laundry.

“I actually had no underlying conditions, and I was doing laundry,” Siliano said. “I felt a strong, strange pain, and I knew it was something I needed help for. I mean, it wasn’t something I could shake off — I immediately knew that this was not good.”

She asked one of her sons to take her to a hospital.

Her lips and hands were numb, and her chest was burning. She said it was one of the slowest drives of her life.

“I felt like he was driving so super slow, and so — I had my faculties about me — I called 911,” Siliano said. “And they said, ‘Don’t go to the emergency room, just stop here.’”

When she got out of the car at Cranberry Township EMS, crews immediately placed her into an ambulance for assessment.