One California woman’s visit to the beauty salon nearly ended her life.

Elizabeth Smith, 48, still suffers from vision and balance problems after having a stroke in December 2013. Doctors called it Beauty Parlor Stroke Syndrome caused by the salon’s sink, reports The Sun.

Eight days after Smith’s salon visit, where she spent 10 minutes having her hair washed, she started experiencing weakness in her left arm and leg. One week later she suffered a massive stroke.

"I vomited, my head became hot and I couldn’t stand,” she told ABC 10. “I had weakness in my arms and legs. They didn’t think I was going to live.”

While Beauty Parlor Stroke Syndrome is rare, it is a documented condition and occurs when one of the four main arteries that go to the brain suffer an injury, tear or a blood clot that’s caused by hyper-extension of the neck, reports Self. 

“When you hyper-extend your neck, there can be a little bit of compression on the artery from simply just changing the position or the bones slide a little bit one over the other,” Dr. Peter Gloviczki, a vascular surgeon based in Minnesota, told the mag.

It is recommended that to lessen the risk of this type of injury — which has also been found to occur in other activities like tennis, sitting in a dentist’s chair and yoga — the neck should be tilted back no more than 20 degrees and should be supported. Specific to Beauty Parlor Stroke Syndrome, doctors say an easy alternative is bending the neck forward over the sink instead of back.

For Smith, she continues raising her two children on her own two years after her stroke knowing that if she were to suffer a second one she could die.

See a video of the account below.

(Photo: CBS 2 Los Angeles)