Mexican woman rushed into surgery after pretending to faint

A Mexican woman who fell at work and faked a fainting spell out of embarrassment was taken to a hospital and learned she needed emergency surgery to remove her gallbladder.

Estefanía Sanchez took a spill up the escalator stairs and was not injured, but kept up the fainting ruse until the medical staff found she had gallstones and needed her gallbladder removed immediately.

“If I hadn’t gone to the hospital that day, the procedure could’ve been more complicated and the gallstones may have affected my pancreas as well,” Estefanía, who is from Nuevo León in México, told NeedToKnow.Online.

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Sanchez, a 24-year-old lawyer, was working at her Nuevo León office when her high heels caught on an escalator and she tripped, she recounted in a TikTok.

“I can’t even describe how embarrassed I felt at that moment,” she said, noting that she was surrounded by “very important people.”

“Out of shame, I pretended to faint and since I work at a government office, there is always medical staff on standby. Therefore, EMT arrived soon after and decided to take me to the hospital and ran a few tests to determine the cause of my fainting.”

Her humiliation only grew the longer she stuck with her story, so Estefanía kept the secret from doctors as they continued running tests on her.

That’s when they made a potentially life-threatening discovery.

“Finally, a doctor told me that I had gallstones and they had to remove my gallbladder urgently.”

Sanchez said that during the ordeal, she only admitted the truth of the situation to her mother in a text during the ambulance ride. Then she told that story in a TikTok that has been viewed more than 4.3 million times.