Tragedy as 18-year-old student dies after collapsing half way through graduation
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Hiram High School/YouTube/Fox5 Atlanta
A 18-year-old student has died after collapsing at her graduation.
Sienna Steward, from Georgia, US, was attending her graduation at Hiram High School on 23 May when she collapsed during the ceremony.
However, she asked her mother, Saevon Chum, to let her walk onto the stage to receive her diploma.
Advert
Just weeks after receiving her degree, Chum confirmed that her daughter had passed away after collapsing for a second time.
According to her mum, Sienna was diagnosed with severe cardiomyopathy at the age of four.
When she was eight, she was able to get a heart transplant, and it allowed her to live a ‘relatively normal’ life for around 10 years, before she became ‘weak’, and started ‘getting slower’.
In April last year, Sienna was diagnosed with heart failure, which led to her collapsing at her graduation.
Her mum said: "Her heart transplant heart was getting sick. It was getting weak and slowing down.
"When I got there, the ambulance was already there. She had collapsed. She had had another episode.
"But this was the first time she collapsed unconscious."
Chum also told FOX 5 Atlanta: “It was a scary moment at graduation, but she was a tough cookie ever since she was little.
“She was just so tough. She was just strength and resilience, she was just so strong.
“All she could tell me is, ‘I just want to graduate, I want to walk.’
“That's all she wanted, because she already missed her prom, because before then she was in the hospital and missed her senior prom."
She collapsed again two weeks later, but ended up passing away on 12 June in hospital.
Chum said: "They asked if I’d known that she'd had a sick heart for a while. I say ‘yes,’ but you know, you're never going to be ready to lose your child.
“As a mom, you feel so proud because she just fought through something that hurts her.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(499x0:501x2)/Sienna-Leigh-Stewart-062424-1-f392179bdc934208b44a7c6d2435018e.jpg)
“You have to be proud. Till the end, I was proud.”
Sienna had her heart set on going to college to study sonogram tech and a GoFundMe has been set up to help Sienna's family - which has since raised $10,000.
On the page, her family described her as having a 'contagious laugh' and an 'unmatched energy'.
"She was a bright light with a bubbly personality that could lift anyones spirits." it continued.
While her obituary said she 'filled the room with sweet warm respectful energy', and her 'upbeat enthused tone of voice that uplifted your spirits instantly', as per PEOPLE.
“Sienna’s fashion sensibility was unmatched, always looking so amazing everywhere she went.” it said.