I was a super-fit mum-of-two who ran triathlons – until I got the second Covid vaccine. I mourn my old self every day

A super-fit triathlete says her life was ‘ripped away’ after she suffered severe heart damage just weeks after getting a Covid vaccine. 

Mother-of-two Ingi Doyle, 56, was told there was a one-in-ten chance she wouldn’t survive surgery to address one of the many medical complications that followed her second injection of the Pfizer vaccine. 

Ms Doyle said she had ‘no health problems whatsoever’ prior to getting two doses of the jab in mid-2021 and was the epitome of health and fitness. 

She had won medals competing in triathlons, participated in Ironwoman and half-marathon events and trained 15 hours a week on top of her job as a fitness instructor.

‘My life was all about sport, being full-on active,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Fit as a fiddle, I was really strong’. 

Ms Doyle, who migrated to Australia from Sweden in 1989, took the Covid vaccines to protect her ageing parents.

‘I wasn’t anti-vaccine, I had no reason to be, but I have never had a flu jab in my life. I was never sick, always healthy,’ she said.

Ms Doyle (left) said if it weren’t for her partner Scott Elms (right) she doesn’t know how she would have made it through a series of devastating diagnoses

‘But with my family over in Sweden and my mum and dad getting old and sick – I thought, “Oh, well, I am going to do this”.’

Ms Doyle’s first dose left her with a sore arm – but her second jab, on July 4, 2021, was when it ‘all turned to s***’, in what has been listed as a suspected adverse reaction with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

Ms Doyle said: ‘Literally the day after I woke up with a massive swelling under my armpit. It looked like a small water balloon sagging down under my ribs.’

For the next two weeks, Ms Doyle said she felt fatigued. ‘Just walking around was starting to feel hard and I didn’t know why,’ she said. 

‘Then, very, very suddenly, I had a very severe sharp pain in my lower abdomen. This radiated through to my lower back.’

Ms Doyle (pictured in hospital) was told she had suffered an aortic dissection – a large tear of the aorta’s lining on the inside of the heart

It worsened over the next few hours until her partner, Scott, took Ms Doyle to hospital. 

After a series of tests, Ms Doyle was told she had suffered an aortic dissection –  a large tear of the lining on the inside of the heart.

‘I was really scared, I was alone’,’ she said. Her partner wasn’t allowed into the hospital due to Covid restrictions. 

‘I was in pain and I thought I might die here,’ she recalled. 

‘They also found [I had] an enlarged heart but no answers why. I had many scans and tests and was put on lots of medications. After five days I broke down, I was a mess.’

It was just the beginning of a nightmare series of medical complications and surgeries – including undergoing gruelling 12-hour cardiac surgery where she suffered organ failure and spent two weeks being fed through a tube.

‘I was in and out consciousness and given heavy drugs that made me hallucinate so bad,’ she said.

‘I was so scared. I was in pain and again I thought I was going to die.’

She later suffered a hematoma (a pool of clotted blood), a pulmonary embolism (a clot blocking her right lung) and an infected skin graft that required more major surgery.

Before having her second Pfizer Covid jab in July, 2021 Ms Doyle (pictured) competed in age group triathlons on the Sunshine Coast and described herself as being ‘full-on active’

Ms Doyle’s operations saw her opened up from her her sternum down to her public bone

When Ms Doyle’s health troubles first began, she and partner Scott Elms, 53, desperately tried to find the cause. 

‘Scott wrote a massive list and at the very bottom was “could it be the vaccines?”‘ Ms Doyle said.

‘Doctors said that couldn’t be right because the vaccine goes into your arm, stays there for three days and disappears.’

Unconvinced, Mr Elms got in contact with renowned Immunology Professor Nikolai Petrovsky from South Australia’s Flinders University.

She said Professor Petrovsky gave Scott a ‘really clear description’ that her injury could have been caused by vaccine spike proteins found in the bloodstream. 

‘He sent some links of other similar cases he had seen,’ she said. Daily Mail Australia has sought comment from Prof Petrovsky.

Ms Doyle says no one has offered the couple an alternative theory. 

‘They have looked for everything else, they have looked high and low for anything that could possibly be the cause and found nothing,’ she said. 

‘The only thing they have not looked for properly is the vaccine.

‘In my opinion the biggest problem we have in Australia is there is no testing facility for spike proteins. Where do we get things tested?’

The vascular surgeon who did her first surgery reported Ms Doyle as a suspected vaccine adverse reaction to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). 

Her reactions to the vaccine are listed as aortic dissection and fibromuscular dysplasia under the case number 659726 on the TGA database. 

Ms Doyle’s reactions to the vaccine are listed on the TGA’s database (pictured)

Ms Doyle (pictured right with Mr Elms) said she feels like her old life has been ‘ripped away’

Despite the TGA’s claims that it ‘closely monitors reports of possible side effects to the Covid-19 vaccines’, Ms Doyle said she has only received one phone call from someone checking her details.

She holds health ministers and the TGA responsible for what happened to her and others.

‘Their sole job is to make sure whatever they push onto people and give to us and recommend is “safe and effective” – that’s their job and they failed,’ she said.

‘I will never forgive them for they have done.

‘Heart issues are not like a broken arm that can heal in six weeks. We have these things for life and it’s not just the person injured suffering alone.’

The TGA told Daily Mail Australia that Ms Doyle had not been contacted because those lodging a report ‘are not routinely contacted or given feedback about their adverse event report beyond the acknowledgement letter’. 

However, in some cases adverse reaction reporters are contacted if further information is required to either complete or assess the adverse event report,’ a spokesperson said.

The TGA said it used ‘a wide range of methods to identify potential safety signals’. 

‘If the TGA’s investigations confirm a safety issue potentially linked to a vaccine, prompt regulatory action is taken, including communicating about the issue to health professionals and consumers,’ the TGA said. 

Ms Doyle said she wakes up every day with pressure in her chest. 

‘I have random stabs to the middle, to the left, into my neck, into my arm,’ she said.

‘They can’t find one of my ovaries, they can’t see it because there is too much mess inside me.’ 

Her kidneys are only functioning at around 35 per cent. ‘This means I get tired really easily, my blood pressure is unstable,’ she said.

‘I feel like I am a walking timebomb and living with a lot of uncertainty.

‘Once you have had a heart issue, any little sign or symptom puts you on edge, you never know when you will blow up again.

‘You can never really get on with things, it’s like your life has been ripped away.’

Ms Doyle said the trauma of the last few years has also changed her disposition. ‘I’m not who I was and I will never be who I was,’ she said.

‘My partner sometimes says, “You used to be so happy-go-lucky”.

‘I am still a happy person, a smiley person, but it’s like something has died inside me and I will never get that part back.

‘Sadly for me, my life as I once knew it is over. 

‘I mourn my old self every day as I know it will never be the same.’