heart attack

M

Merle

New member
HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK 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)
 
Snopes says false, with a large amount of text:

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/coughcpr.htm

One quote:

"If you were a doctor and knew exactly what you were doing, it might help save your life. If, however, you are not a physician and you misjudge the kind of cardiac event you're experiencing, cough CPR could kill. This "helpful" e-mail could help you right into a grave."
 
Merle, It's good that your heart's in the right place, but it just doesn't work. Fifteen years in emergency medicine and dealing with hundreds of cardiac arrests, including a number of which happened right in front of me, and the science just doesn't pan out. Here's the spin... It takes energy to make the myocardial muscle contract. In the same manner, moving of a muscle produces a small amount of biochemical energy as well. In fact, the old protocols for a witnessed cardiac arrest called for a precordial thump - a sharp fist to the center of the sternum like you'd see Hawkeye do on old MASH episodes. The best precordial thump "might" generate 5 joules (watt-seconds, a unit of electrical energy) and in a freshly coded patient, the rhythm "might" (read that as rarely) be converted to a sustainable cardiac rhythm. Unfortunately, a cough doesn't produce that much energy, joules-wise. In fact, defibrillation (shocking them) starts at a minimum of 200 joules. On the down side, a cough can also trigger what is called a vagal response -activating the vagal nerve (a cranial nerve of which one function is to keep the heart from beating too fast) -which, in turn, would shut down an already compromised heart. In other words, cough, tigger the vagus, slow the heart to nada, die. On top of all this, I've seen patients tank, and I've brought them back. They had no recall of going out - it happened way too fast for them to take preventive action. So, how could you possibly realize in time what was happening with any certainty to be able to mintain a sustained coughing fit for the time it takes to get to a hospital? If you really want to help yourself, takwe care of yourself. Learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of a heart attack. Should any or all appear, stop what you're doing, call 911 or the appropriate emergency number and activate the emergency medical system. Relax and wait for help to arrive. Don't jump in the car and haul Grandpa to the ER 'cause "you can get him there before the ambulance can". Statistically, you're going to a funeral.
Again, your heart's in the right place and I applaud your intention to pass along information that may very well save another life. That makes you a good man in my book.
 
I asked my mother about this, (she's an RN, btw, and a damn good one), and she says its true.

She says that is your pulse gets too high, your supposed to strain like your having a hard time taking a bowel movement.
 
Having had a heart attack at 39 years old I can tell you that the last thing on your mind is going to be to cough.... As you clutch your chest and your arm it will take you about 20 seconds to realize what the hell is happening to you. There went your ten second thresh hold of safety.

Ben I asked my wife who is a nurse( Advanced Cardiac Life Support Trained) and she says that the coughing is a vagal maneuvere. Good for tachicardia (excessive rapid heart beat) and arythmias. Lots of people that have heart attacks don't have arythmias.

Like was told before that if you are not having a fast heart rate or arythmia to begin with you will slow the heart and kill yourself in the process by causing the vagal nerve in your brain to respond and slow your already stressed heart.

Also most heart attacks are caused by blood clots(like mine) and the coughing could make another blood clot go into your heart and stop a blood vessel up thereby making your predicament worse than it was!

If you have never had a heart attack you really can't comprehend what it is that you go through at the time. People can try to explain it and it just doesn't get the point across :eek: When it comes to giving advice such as what has been given it is really best to shut up unless you are a doctor(no offense for the poster who posted this). Bad advice can kill a person faster than the original circumstance will!!!!!!! >>>>>>>>James L.
 
Even if that were true, I doubt it would work anyhoo. For one reason. In my CPR study-class they taught us that most heart attacks are survivable, except for one thing. People DONT self diagnose correctly.

So your chest and arm are hurting.

Lets see:

"Boy I gotta start keeping those burritos in the fridge"

"I really ought to trade that 300 win mag for a 17 Remington"

"Getting too old to be pulling 300 ft. of double-ought by hand-need a new job"
...........etc.

Heart attack doesnt figure into it. Why? Nature and God gave us a VERY Powerful tool. Its called DENIAL. It keeps our minds safe. Therefore our bodies stay running. Too much of a scare can throw a person into shock and kill them. So we have this safety device.

Death-circumstances are frightening. Therefore our subconscios doesn't want us to think about them, our mind will contrive all sorts of things to keep the fear gone.

But that works against folks who are having heart problems. Our instructor said most have plenty of time to get to get 911 assistance. But some die who shouldnt. That is sad.
 
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