"I’m very lucky. I've been given a second chance. It's like a wake-up call for me,” says Pat Sandness.

Pat, a registered nurse, was training for a half-marathon on a treadmill at her home in Menomonie one Thursday evening in 2006, when something unusual stopped her.

"I got about half-way through my run and I developed chest pains in the center of my chest,” says Sandness. “I just thought I was fatigued and didn't warm up enough."

Her husband told her to get help, but Pat, a healthy 51-year-old at the time, insisted she was fine—even driving to Duluth for work the next day.

"I got about half-way, probably to Rice Lake, and I had chest pains again but I thought I was just having acid reflux or indigestion really badly,” says Sandness.

Saturday morning Pat woke up feeling nauseous and finally went to an emergency care center, where they determined she was having a heart attack.

"I was concerned that I hadn't recognized the symptoms that I had tried to think that this was nothing when indeed it was something that was very serious, but I was still in denial. I just couldn't believe that I had had a heart attack,” says Sandness.

She was taken to Luther Midelfort where she had angioplasty to clear up a vein, which was 90 percent blocked.

Dr. Regis Fernandes says Pat's denial is common with women, who don't recognize the symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue and nausea.

"But even when women get chest pains they may not look for attention regarding having a heart attack because they think it's unlikely that they'd have heart attacks,” says Dr. Fernandes.

The American Heart Association says that cardiac-related deaths are the number one killer of women world-wide, and nation-wide, killing more women each year than every form of cancer combined. For every woman that dies of breast cancer, six women die of heart disease.

Dr. Fernandes says he hopes women learn the added risk factors for heart attack, including obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, family history and smoking.

Pat did have the risk factor of having higher cholesterol, but with changing to a low-fat diet and sticking to her medication, the avid runner wasn't about to let a heart attack finish her off before she got the chance to cross the finish line again.

"I did complete the Manitoba marathon which is in Winnipeg, Canada, which my husband and I do every year,” says Sandness, looking at a framed picture of her after the race. “A reporter from the Winnipeg Sun happened to notice I was pretty emotional after crossing the finish line and he came back, and did a full page article regarding my accomplishment."

Looking back, she says she wishes she could have a heart-to-heart with all women, and let them know what she learned when it was almost too late.

"I say get in and get it checked out. Better to go in and it not be a heart attack than go in and have something drastically happen,” says Sandness.

Sandness says she plans on completing another half-marathon this June. Since her heart attack, Dr. Fernandes says Pat has been healthy and symptom-free.