- December 20, 2024
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Courtesy photo
It was 2 a.m. when Janaina Bonassi awoke from her sleep gasping for air.
Her 4-year-old daughter, who was asleep next to her, began to cry and scream for help. Bonassi passed out, and her heart and breathing came to a halt.
At only 33 years old, Bonassi suffered sudden cardiac arrest.
Nearly five years later, her life has changed exponentially. Earlier this year, the 39-year-old Horizon West resident was crowned Miss Florida American 2024.
She credits her crown and sash to her story of perseverance as a survivor of cardiac arrest, and she is using her platform to educate and inspire hope in the hearts of others.
“When I first entered pageantry, I was told I had to sell my platform, and I almost was offended,” Bonassi said. “I didn’t want to sell my story and pain for a title, but then I understood that wasn’t the case at all. I shifted my perspective. I want to show the world that you can live with a condition and still have a healthy and active lifestyle. I want to tell people not to give up and to know that trauma is OK. It’s lonely and it’s very dark, but you don’t have to go through it alone. I want people to know their loved ones will be there for them, just like mine were for me.
“We’re all survivors of something, and I want to leave a legacy,” Bonassi said. “I owe this to my family, I owe this to myself, I owe this to people who have this condition and are scared, and I owe this to people who have lost loved ones as a result of cardiac arrest. This is my mission.”
REBIRTH-DAY
Bonassi was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
When she was 10 years old, she moved with her family from her home country to Hunter’s Creek in Orlando.
Her mother opened a dance studio, and she started dancing and helping with classes when she was about 12 years old.
When she was in high school, her family decided to move back to Brazil, and she studied physical education in college there while also working at a dance studio and a gym.
Upon graduating college, Bonassi met her husband, Ricardo, who was a technician for St. Jude Medical and worked with pacemakers.
Bonassi moved with her husband for his job to Minnesota, where she then worked as a personal trainer for LA Fitness. When her husband’s office again was transferred, the couple moved to Texas and Bonassi worked in nutrition.
When the pair decided they were ready to buy a home and start a family, they made the move to Davenport and eventually settled in Horizon West in 2017.
The Bonassis have two daughters — Stella, 9, and Giovanna, 7 — who share their mother's love of dancing and dance at a studio in Horizon West.
SOMETHING WAS OFF
Bonassi said her first sign something could have been wrong was when she had a C-section with her first baby.
“I remember having some issues with my heart rate dropping, but I had my baby and everything was fine,” she said. “When Stella was 2 years old, I had my second baby, Giovanna, and when I was leaving the hospital I was told I had postpartum preeclampsia, so I was upset and my blood pressure was really high. For almost two months, I had to be on medication to help lower my heart rate and prevent something worse from happening.”
In 2019, Bonassi traveled with her husband and children to spend the New Year’s Eve holiday in Brazil with her family.
“I remember feeling really tired the next day, and so I went to bed early with my daughter, Stella,” she said.
That’s when her world stopped.
“My husband realized I didn’t have a pulse and I wasn’t breathing,” Bonassi said. “He started performing CPR. Thank goodness he had the background he does and knew what to do.”
She was rushed to the hospital and lost her memory for about a week. The doctor informed her the cardiac arrest was a result of a genetic condition called Long QT.
“The QT is the polarization between heart beats,” she said. “So, your heart beats and then it beats again, and the reading between those beats is called Long QT. Mine is type three, which is the arrhythmia that happens in the middle of the night when you’re sleeping. I had no idea, but it explained the episodes I was having even going back to the birth of my girls. It’s not something I was thinking about at 33. I was healthy. There was nothing indicating I should have my heart checked.”
An ICD, which serves as both a pacemaker and a defibrillator, was placed in Bonassi’s chest. The small, battery-powered device detects and stops irregular heartbeats, as well as continuously checks heartbeats.
“As exciting and as innovative as technology is today, having the device has been scary,” she said. “I was concerned, and I had a lot of post-traumatic stress. I feel like it was a moment in my life where I couldn’t allow myself to suffer that trauma I went through, because my family also was suffering that trauma with me. So, I wanted to be strong for them. They saw a lot. So, I kept those feelings to myself, and down the line that took a major toll on me. Up until the beginning of this year, I wasn’t even able to talk about my story without choking up and shedding tears.”
SEEING THE SILVER LINING
Hannah Neeleman, known to her millions of followers on social media as Ballerina Farm, was the one to inspire Bonassi to make a change in her life.
“I’m following that page, and I’m seeing this amazing mother taking care of her farm and her eight children like Superwoman,” she said. “I saw she was the 2023 Mrs. American, and she was talking about her pageant experience and that we should join. She really inspired me to do it, because she had so many roles as a woman and seemed to excel at all of them. The pageant celebrates women, and I thought ‘Why not?’ If she could do it, maybe I could too.”
Bonassi joined the pageant world in the beginning of this year, competing as Mrs. Windermere for the Mrs. America Pageant. Although she had no prior pageant experience, she always loved being on stage because of dance.
When Bonassi was crowned Mrs. Windermere, she said her daughter, Stella, told her that no matter what happened to her, she shouldn’t give up. Bonassi said she tries to live up to her promise every day, but there were times when giving up did cross her mind.
“I was silent about the incident for about five years,” she said. “None of my family members talked about it; even my daughter didn’t talk about it. So, when I finally started talking about it, a lot of emotions came out. I wanted to quit, because my daughter started having panic attacks about the incident, and it was really heavy and hard. I felt a lot of guilt, and I didn’t want to bring anymore pain. Not talking about it felt good, and who wants to feel bad and talk about the scary things? I thought it was a scar, but it turned out to still be an open wound.”
Bonassi was crowned the 2024 Mrs. Florida American at the annual Mrs. Florida Pageant held May 19 at Westgate Resort. The delegates competed in three categories of competition: interview, swimsuit and evening gown.
Bonassi then competed at the fifth annual Mrs. American pageant Aug. 27 in Las Vegas, Nevada, among 51 women who were vying to win the coveted title of Mrs. American 2024. She ended up placing in the top 15, and she even had the opportunity to meet her inspiration: Neeleman.
“My daughter’s words always stayed in my mind,” Bonassi said. “I told the girls that if Mommy wins the crown, it would be for them. I ended up being double crowned. I won Florida’s People Choice and the Mrs. Florida American crown. It was perfect. One crown for each of them. I told them that one day they’re going to have the opportunity to inspire little girls with their own stories, and they started shifting their own negative traumas into something more positive.”
FRAGILITY OF LIFE
Bonassi said sharing her story has given her the ability to connect with people all over the world.
She now serves as an ambassador for the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, a national community benefit organization with the vision of eliminating preventable death and disability from sudden cardiac arrest and supporting people affected.
She also is a founder of the “Heart of Hope” podcast, which brings hope to the hearts of those impacted by cardiac arrest.
Bonassi has a book coming out next year, also called “Heart of Hope,” which shares the details of her story and life experiences. There is even a chapter written by her husband, who talks about how he saved her life and the details she missed being in the hospital and suffering from memory loss.
She plans for the book’s pre-release date to be Jan. 2, 2025, her rebirth-day, the day she feels God gave her a second chance. Ten percent of the book sales will go to the SCAF.
“This isn’t something like when you break a leg and you put a cast on and after six weeks you have the cast off and move on with your life,” she said. “Having cardiac arrest isn’t something I can talk about as being in my past. This is my present, and it’s also my future. Every day I will live with this, and there’s a lot of others that do also. It’s so important that we continue to educate our community and continue to share our stories. It’s helped me heal, and I know it can do the same for others.”
On Nov. 2, Bonassi partnered with Hugo Boss and the American Heart Association to host an exclusive shopping event where 10% of the proceeds were donated to AHA. Attendees had the opportunity to enjoy cocktails and meet Bonassi.
Because of his life-saving techniques, Bonassi’s husband will receive the Heartsaver Hero award from AHA at its annual Greater Orlando Heart Walk Saturday, Nov. 9, at the University of Central Florida.
Bonassi recommends people have Long QT screenings done, no matter their age.
“People have this misconception — even I did — that heart health problems don’t start until we’re much older, but that’s not always the case,” she said. “I was on top of my health, my blood work and my eating habits. We need to take this seriously. This can happen to anyone and at any time. These little measures and awarenesses can really make a difference.”
She wishes more people would learn CPR and practice implementing the techniques through live drills. Getting teachers into local schools to educate about CPR is a goal of hers, as well as installing AEDs in more local establishments.
Shifting the way people perceive pageants, as well as growing her following to reach more people, also are goals of hers.
When it comes to day-to-day activities, Bonassi said she’s focused on being present in the moment and enjoying her second chance at life.
“I am living proof that life is fragile and can be taken away from you at any moment,” she said. “When you go through what I went through, you see life through different lenses. These little moments that we don’t take pride in that are our every day, I enjoy those. …I didn’t give myself the opportunity to heal for a long time, because I was concerned about what others were going through.
“I think we have to be spoiled at certain moments in our life and just take care of ourselves,” Bonassi said. “We have to check in and ask ourselves what’s going on and if we’re OK. Saying ‘I’m fine’ isn’t enough. If we don’t help ourselves, we can’t take care of others.”
