This New Jersey woman received the J & J COVID vaccine. A week later she had a blood clot in her lungs.

The doctor ran out of the emergency medical center and headed straight for Ellen Whitney’s car.

A worried look on her face and an alarm in her voice said this was serious.

“Go to the emergency room now,” Dr. Rebecca Barghese told Whitney while sitting outside the medical facility in Montbert.

It’s been more than a week since a 62-year-old Hillsdale woman was vaccinated with a single-dose coronavirus vaccine from Johnson & Johnson at the Hackensack University Medical Center. She felt general malaise and mild pain on her right side.

Lifeline Urgent Care owner Varghese checked Whitney’s vitals in the parking lot and sent her to the emergency department.

“She was short of breath and looked anxious, and her heart rate was very fast …. Vital signs were not stable,” said Varghese.

Doctors suspected that Whitney had developed pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs.

Barghese quickly proved correct. Whitney is one of the rare people who developed blood clotting problems after receiving a vaccine from New Brunswick-based pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, her electronic medical records show.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that at least 28 of the 9 million people who received the J & J vaccine developed blood coagulopathy thrombosis with platelet depletion syndrome (TTS). Three people have died.

According to the CDC, most cases were women between the ages of 18 and 49. Only 6 men were involved.

Authorities reported only 17 cases of coagulation as of April 25.

Paused Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Last month so I could investigate the problem.The suspension was lifted 10 days later by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration after an independent advisory board. We recommended that the benefits of shots outweigh the risks.

But the CDC said Wednesday, with evidence of ” Plausible causalityBetween the vaccine and TTS. Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, who heads the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine safety surveillance work, said TTS Onset 3 to 15 days after vaccination..

Worse news for Johnson & Johnson.

Despite the attractiveness of the single-dose option, the J & J vaccine was found to be 66% effective in clinical trials, compared to approximately 95% efficacy for double-dose shots of Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech. It was.After the suspension, the majority of unvaccinated Americans said they said I didn’t want to get the J & J vaccine From safety concerns.

And a series of “Breakthrough caseIs related to the Johnson & Johnson shot, where people were vaccinated but still infected with COVID-19. The New York Yankees announced this week that eight members of their organization were infected with the virus despite being vaccinated. SI.com.. Last month, the team vaccinated 85% of athletes, coaches and staff. The report states that most received J & J shots.

Barghese thought that in the case of Whitney vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson, a blood clot could be the cause.

“That’s what she said first,” said Varghese.

Combined with her vitals, the doctor knew it was an emergency. The seriousness of Barghese’s concerns surprised Whitney. Whitney was unaware that she was facing life-threatening problems while sitting in the car with her husband Peter Elliott, 59.

“What I thought was remarkable was that they didn’t even get us in,” she said. “The doctors were literally short.”

West Essex Tribune graphic designer Whitney was vaccinated with a single dose of Johnson & Johnson on April 11. About a week later, she began to feel mildly ill. She experienced general malaise, right-sided pain, and while she wasn’t having trouble breathing, “it hurts when I take a deep breath,” she said.

“I felt some pain on my right side, like under my ribs,” Whitney said. “It’s not terrible pain, it’s not enough to do something, but I noticed it.”

Symptoms appeared to be minor, and there were no reports of blood clots associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at the time. But the next week, when her symptoms began, cases began to appear.

She didn’t panic after reading the report, but her worries sneaked up. She had never fought a serious illness and certainly had nothing to do with blood clots.

“I thought,’Maybe I’m reacting,'” Whitney said.

She later said, “I have no heart problems. I have no lung problems …. I am not diabetic. I have nothing.”

By April 21, she was still sick and decided to make an appointment with the emergency medical center.

“My husband said,’Let’s go to the doctor,'” she recalled.

Whitney soon learned that she had blood clots in both lungs — a doctor at Ridgewood Valley Hospital told her for the vaccine. One of her lungs had also collapsed.

The hospital reported Whitney’s case to the CDC.

“And the CDC is in contact with me,” said Whitney, who discussed her case with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is jointly managed by the CDC and the FDA.

New Jersey does not track vaccine-related TTS cases in the state, according to Donna Roysner, director of public relations at the Ministry of Health.

“I am aware that one of the people reported to the Federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a New Jersey woman between the ages of 18 and 50 who meets the case definition of thrombosis with platelet depletion syndrome (TTS). We know, “she said. on mail. “For medical privacy reasons, the Department of Health does not provide additional details.”

Whitney wasn’t too at risk because he sought treatment early. But she wondered what would have happened if she wasn’t aggressive.

“What if I didn’t go for emergency treatment?” She said.

From the emergency parking lot, she and her husband headed straight to Valley Hospital. They arrived after noon.

“I was there for 10 hours (tested), and they did a CAT scan, they … did an X-ray. They did everything,” Whitney recalled. “And after they got the results of the CAT scan, they said,” You have pulmonary embolism in both of your lungs. “

“They immediately gave me an anticoagulant and admitted me.”

She spent five days in the hospital.

While there, a doctor told her, “I’ve seen this.” This means seeing the response to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. At least two doctors told her that she had recently seen a patient with a pulmonary thrombosis after receiving a J & J shot.

“‘This is due to the vaccine’, that’s what the doctor told me,” Whitney said. “‘This is due to the vaccine.'”

She was oxygenated and given the anticoagulant Elikis.

“I was experiencing pain on the right side,” Whitney said. “And I also started to be called muscle soreness, muscle soreness in different parts of my body. And my legs felt strange. So they hurried down me and He gave me an ultrasound on my leg to check for deep vein thrombosis. “

The pain on her right side worsened for a day or two, and she was treated with morphine. Doctors speculated that she had fluid at the bottom of her lungs, which her body eventually absorbed.

Whitney is still using anticoagulants and is recovering.

Her swift action and urgent response by Barghese allowed doctors to detect pulmonary embolism early.

Whitney emphasized that she favors vaccination. But she wants to raise awareness in case someone else who receives the Johnson & Johnson shot experiences similar symptoms.

What she is worried about is whether she has to deal with blood clots for the rest of her life. It’s too early to know, the doctor told her.

“This is an undeveloped sea. I don’t know what these strange side effects of the vaccine are,” the pulmonologist told her. “We just don’t know.”

Our journalism needs your support.Please Subscribe today To NJ.com..

Spencer Kent may reach at [email protected]..