A LIFE SAVER
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
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)
BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY
FRIENDS AS POSSIBLEIndex
