HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

Umatilla, FL

My friend Gerry forwared this email.  I think it's great.

I hope everyone can send this on as it is really important for everyone to know

1. Let's say it's 7:25pm and you're going  home (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job.  
2. You're really tired, upset and frustrated.  
3. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag out into your arm and up in to your jaw.  You are only about five km from the hospital nearest your home.
4. CALL 911 immediately.  While you're waiting do the following.
5. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. 
6. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.                 
7. Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack without help, the person whose heart is beating  improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.  
8. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously.
9. 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. 
10. 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.  
11. 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.
12. In this way, heart attack victims can get help or to a hospital. 
13. Tell as many other people as possible about this. It could save their lives! 

UPDATE

I'm very sensitive to spreading Internet misinformation.  I may have been sucked in on this one.   Thanks to anonymous, who posted the comment below.  It seems that this info is partially true so I won't delete it  But I did edit it to include the call 911 step first.

Thank you Anonymous.  Here is anonymous' comment.

Anonymous2/24/2017 1:56 PM

I travel alone so read this with interest. Since I used to be a librarian I also had to do a quick bit of research. It looks like this is something of an Internet "meme," that might or might not be helpful. The quick gist looks like it may help for certain types of heart attacks, but for other types (more common?) it could actually hurt vs. calling 911 and sitting quietly (presuming one is not on top of a mountain with no cell signal).

Of course each person should make their own decision, but here is a link to a couple of articles that aren't as enthusiastic.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/homecure/coughcpr.asp

https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-matters-magazine/medical/ask-the-experts/cough-cpr