HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

Let's say it's 6.15pm and you're going home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day at work. You're really tired, upset and frustrated.

Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag 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. You might have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

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.

However, these victims can help themselves:

• If driving, pull up quickly - never mind the traffic. If you are on a motorway try and steer for the hard shoulder;
• A deep breath should be taken before coughing vigorously - 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 regain normal rhythm. If you recover a little and have a mobile phone dial 999 and call an ambulance. In this way, heart attack victims can get initial treatment quickly followed by hospital treatment.

Please t ell as many other people as possible about this. It could save their lives!!

A cardiologist says "If everyone who sees this tells 10 other people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life".

Penni Giles
Continuing Care Administrator
NHS Cornwall & Isles of Scilly

This item was extracted from a circulating email and has been slightly enhanced.

See also In Case of Emergency (ICE).