Heart attacks are a well-known health emergency. And that makes sense, considering that over 800,000 people in the USA have a heart attack each year.

But the right response to someone having a heart attack might not be as well known. If a person has symptoms that could be a heart attack, they might feel tempted to wait and see whether they start to feel better.

While that might seem sensible, it’s absolutely the wrong move. Heart attacks need medical attention as soon as possible. And in this article, we’ll explain exactly why there’s no time to waste when it comes to a suspected heart attack – as well as how to ensure you can get help fast.

What is a heart attack exactly?

A heart attack occurs when something blocks proper blood flow to the heart. Without blood flow, the heart can’t get oxygen – and that lack of oxygen can cause severe damage to the heart.

Most often, heart attacks are caused by coronary artery disease. In coronary artery disease, a person’s arteries fill with plaques. If a piece of plaque breaks off the artery wall, it can cause a clot that blocks the artery – producing a heart attack.

And what is cardiac arrest?

Cardiac arrest is an even more severe health emergency that can sometimes be confused with a heart attack. Actually, they’re not the same thing.

Cardiac arrest is when someone’s heart stops beating. As you can imagine, this is one of the deadliest emergencies a person can face. The CDC advises that you can help someone having a cardiac arrest by calling 911 right away, starting CPR immediately, and using an automated external defibrillator (AED).

In this article, we won’t focus on cardiac arrests. But there is a link between the two conditions – as we’ll discuss later.

How to recognize a heart attack: the signs

Heart attacks can cause a variety of symptoms, and different people can experience heart attacks in very different ways. In fact, 1 out of 5 heart attacks is “silent,” meaning that it has no symptoms at all.

The CDC identifies key heart attack symptoms for men and women as:

Chest pain or discomfort
Shortness of breath
Pain or discomfort in the jaw, neck, back, arm, or shoulder.
Light-headedness or faintness, or a cold sweat
Nausea or tiredness (particularly in women).

The chest pain or discomfort involved with heart attacks may occur in the left side or middle of the chest. Sometimes people having a heart attack will feel pain there, while at other times it will feel as though something is squeezing or pressing on their chest or heart. The pain may feel as though it’s coming from the heart and extending down an arm.

It’s important to know that women are less likely to experience symptoms like chest pain and more likely to have symptoms like dizziness or nausea. So, heart attacks in women are sometimes missed because the related symptoms are mistaken for a different problem.

Why it’s so crucial to act fast

It’s easy to see why heart attacks are so dangerous – they mean your heart can’t get oxygen. And just as you can’t survive for much time without breathing in oxygen, your heart muscle can’t last for a long time without enough oxygen either.

So, the heart muscle will get damaged during a heart attack. And the damage will be worse the longer the blood flow blockage goes on. According to Johns Hopkins, permanent damage can happen in less than half an hour of blockage due to a heart attack. There is truly no time to waste.

A Harvard article also points out that in some rare cases, a heart attack can cause cardiac arrest – a stopped heart. If your heart attack ends up leading to a cardiac arrest, your chances of survival are much higher if you’re in an ambulance with paramedics and defibrillators rather than at home or being driven to the ER by family.

What to do if you suspect a heart attack

If you think you might be having a heart attack, the best thing to do is call 911 right away. If you can’t call 911 yourself, get someone else to do it as soon as possible.

If you’re concerned about the risks of heart attacks, talk to your doctor about what you should do if you think you’re having one. Doctors may advise some people to take aspirin or another medication during a suspected heart attack, but other people may not be able to take aspirin safely. Always follow the advice from your doctor about what’s best for you.

Putting a plan in place to get help fast during a heart attack

When you’re having a heart attack, there is no better option than calling 911. But in some cases, people having heart attacks can’t use their phones to call 911 – and that’s a real problem.

Why does this happen? There are several reasons.

One is those symptoms of dizziness, tiredness, and light-headedness that we mentioned. A person having a heart attack might have a phone close by, but they might be physically unable to go get the cell phone or think through how to dial it. This is an especially big problem if the person has left their cell phone behind in a different room – for example, if the heart attack occurs while they’re in the shower.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that a cell phone is lost or out of battery just when someone needs it most. And heart attacks can sometimes happen while a person is doing physical work outdoors and they’ve left their phone indoors, far away. For example, a person might have a heart attack while gardening or while clearing snow. Indeed, shoveling snow is a particularly risky activity when it comes to heart attacks.

For these reasons and more, people who are at risk of heart attacks need to ensure they have a way to call for help at all times, including while they’re showering or bathing and when they don’t have a phone with them. And that method of calling for help needs to be simple enough that it can be used when a person is feeling faint, light-headed, nauseous, or otherwise not fully clear-minded.

In short, what’s needed is a medical alert.

How medical alerts can make a difference

A medical alert is a small device often worn as a pendant or on a belt clip. It typically has a simple SOS button that just needs to be pressed and held to call for help. That’s much easier to use for someone who’s not feeling well and will struggle to get to a phone or use it.

Plus, since a medical alert is body-worn and usually shower-proof, it can stay with you all the time, even in the bathroom or when you’re doing chores and aren’t carrying your phone.

Some medical alerts, like ours at SureSafe, also offer automatic fall detection. That means that if a person does faint or trip and fall due to a heart attack, the device has the ability to sense the fall and call for help on its own.

It is important to note here that medical alerts are still great for people with pacemakers, as long as you choose an option that’s not a pendant – you don’t want to be wearing a medical alert over your chest, right next to your pacemaker. For example, at SureSafe, we offer a belt clip option, which keeps the device at a better distance from your heart.

Who’s at risk of a heart attack?

This all sounds like serious stuff – and it is. So you may be wondering – who’s at risk of a heart attack? Do you need to start preparing what you’ll do if one happens?

The CDC identifies three key risk factors for heart attacks and coronary artery disease as:

Smoking
High blood pressure
Unhealthy blood cholesterol levels.

Some other factors that can increase the risk of heart attacks include:

Age, as older people face higher risks
Not getting enough activity and exercise
Drinking too much alcohol
Genetics.

Make a plan for heart attacks with SureSafe

If you’re worried about the possibility of a heart attack, talk to your doctor. They may be able to advise you about lifestyle choices, medications, or other steps that could decrease your risk.

But it’s also smart to make a plan about what you’ll do if a heart attack does happen. As we’ve mentioned, your doctor may be able to give you guidance about what to do during a heart attack.

And you’ll also want to ensure that you have a way of calling for help during a heart attack – even if it happens at the worst possible time.

At SureSafe, we offer simple medical alerts that are reliable and easy to use – even for a person who isn’t feeling well. To get help, all you need to do is press and hold the device’s SOS button. You’ll then be able to speak to a helper right through the alarm device.

Who gets the call from your medical alert? That’s up to you. You can opt for family monitoring, which means that the call goes to the phone of a loved one. And you can supply additional numbers in case the first person called doesn’t pick up.

Alternatively, you can choose 24/7 monitoring from a professional response center. That’s a great choice if your family members might be unable to answer their phones at any time.

There’s lots more to know about our medical alerts, too – like their great GPS tracking function. So, if you’d like to learn more, just get in touch with us. You can submit our contact form, give us a call at 888 540 7193, or send an email to [email protected]. You can also use our live chat or request a call back.