Sienna Stewart, an 18-year-old African American student from Hiram, Georgia, passed away two weeks after her high school graduation.
This follows a heartbreaking collapse during her graduation ceremony captured on video and widely shared.
Sienna’s mother, Saevon Chum, remembered her daughter’s resilience despite health challenges, telling Fox 5 Atlanta:
“She kept smiling. Seeing her smile meant everything to me.”
During the graduation ceremony on May 23, Sienna suddenly collapsed, prompting an urgent pause as school staff called for medical assistance. Though Sienna regained consciousness briefly, her health took a serious turn.
“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 tearfully recounted.
Despite pleas from paramedics and her mother to seek immediate medical attention, Sienna was determined to walk across the stage and receive her diploma unaided.
“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,” Chum explained.
Sienna had battled severe cardiomyopathy since she was 4 years old and underwent a life-saving heart transplant at age 8, which gave her a decade of relative health until complications arose in April, leading to heart failure.
After signs of initial recovery, Sienna tragically passed away on June 12.
“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,” Chum shared.
Reflecting on Sienna’s remarkable strength, Chum expressed pride, saying:
“As a mom, you feel so proud because she just fought through something that hurts her. You have to be proud. Till the end, I was proud.”
