How to survive a heart attack when you are alone.  The following is worth passing on and be sure you always remember it.  Let’s say it’s 6:15 p.m. and you are  driving home, alone of course, after an unusually hard day on the job.  You are 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 will be able to make it that far.  What can you do?  You have 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 seems 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, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.  A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives or until the heart is 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.

Please pass on.  Article was taken from – Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital. (Reprint from the Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response).

kommonsentsjane