Heart Attack - sounds worthwhile to send on to you

March 25, 2002

Subject: Heart Attack

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK ALONE

If everyone who gets this sends it to 10 people, you

can bet that we'll save at least one life.

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)

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