Please read this at least once before this situation arises!
• Call 911 for heart attack or stroke symptoms, or just drive to the ER? What doctors say you should do (American Heart Association News, 4-15-25)
Meanwhile, assuming you've read that article and are back to leisure reading, one of my most reliable friends/editors asked me to share this advice (yes, I know, I wondered what 1 and 2 were also, but they were clearly in the nature of throat-clearing):
Suppose you might be having a heart attack:
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. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.
5. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy who taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.
6. HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE? 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.
7. 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 felt to be beating normally again.
8. 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.
• How to tell the difference between a heart attack and panic attack (Catherine S. Williams, American Heart Association News, 7-13-22)
• 7 things to know about how stroke is different for women (American Heart Association News, 5-22-24)
Happy birthday, Dad, wherever you are!