HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

News Article from Rochester General Hospital Newsletter "How to survive a heart attack when alone."

Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course),

after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and

frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest

that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are

only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home; unfortunately

you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. What can you do?

You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected

to tell you how to perform it on yourself. Since many people are alone

when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed to be in order.




Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who

begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing

consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing

repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before

each cough. The cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing

sputum from deep inside the chest. And a cough must be repeated about

every 2 seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is

felt to be beating normally again.




Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze

the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the

heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack

victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible

about this, it could save their lives! From Health Cares, Rochester

General Hospital via Chapter 240s newsletter AND THE BEAT GOES ON ...

(reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)