How To Survive A Heart Attack if Alone
1. Imagine you are home or going home – anywhere where you might be alone.
2. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag out into your arm and up in to your jaw. You realize you are having a heart attack.
3. The nearest hospital is close, but you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it that far. And you may not have much time. (The person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, often has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.)
4. Even if you have been trained in CPR, you may not know how to help yourself.
5. HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE? Unfortunately, many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack without help. Here are some helpful tips.
* 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 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 to regain a normal rhythm.
6. In this way, heart attack victims can get help or to a hospital.
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Larry, this is my area of expertise: cough cpr is not effective beyond a few seconds and only should be used in the presence of professionals in highly monitored situations. I know this is circulating in popular literature, but it is not a very good idea.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/CardiacArrest/Cough-CPR_UCM_432380_Article.jsp#.VvF9OPk71SE
THANKS, Jim!! Folks, (on this topic at least :-)), if Jim says it, it’s worth listening to.
So, Jim – what if a heart attack DOES happen when we’re alone? Are we better off NOT doing this??