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Siblings die in sleep, woman gets heart surgery to prevent it from happening to her

Her brother died while he was still in high school and her sister died 10 years later.

After two of her siblings died in their sleep without warning, one Austin woman decided to take her health into her own hands.

Kat Kronenberg showed KVUE's Christy Millweard a table full of photos Monday.

But those special moments were cut short when both her brother and sister died suddenly in their sleep.

Her brother died while still in high school.

"He was in perfect health, amazing, and just didn't wake up one morning,” said Kronenberg. "Ten years later my sister had the same misfortune."

According to Kronenberg, doctors determined both died of heart arrhythmias.

"Life just changed on a dime," said Kronenberg.

It was something no one ever saw coming.

"Devastating, devastating,” said Kronenberg.

So Kronenberg decided to do her own health research by going through extensive testing.

"There was no definitive yes or no, I'm healthy, I'm not,” said Kroenenberg. "All the roads I went down, the answer was, 'We don't know.'"

Ultimately, she decided to get a defibrillator inside her heart. It's a device to help keep a normal, steady heartbeat.

"It's a big decision to make, but having watched what my nieces went through, and my brother-in-law, it was the smartest option," said Kroenenberg. "Having information to me is power, so having a defibrillator -- I had information, and I knew what my heart was doing. We could control it.”

Her doctor, Rodney Horton, an Electrophysiologist at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute at St. David's, said the decision was the right one.

"Her family has a fairly alarming history to it,” said Horton.

For heart arrhythmia problems, Horton said sudden deaths in your family or fainting without warning can be red flags, and may mean you need a surgery like Kronenberg.

"While she had not had a history of fainting spells and things like that, we were able to identify that she was high risk,” said Horton.

A risk Kronenberg wasn't willing to take because she didn't want to miss creating any more memories.

As a way for Kronenberg to deal with the grief from losing both of her siblings she wrote a children's book called "Dream Big."

She plans to release another book next year called “Love Big.”

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