Myocardial infarction, or heart attack, occurs when a coronary artery is blocked: you have no way to stop it, but you must act quickly to increase your chances of survival.
- It is impossible to stop a heart attack, so to increase a person’s chances of survival and recovery, you must react very quickly.
- “Once a heart attack begins, the heart muscle begins to die due to the lack of oxygen in the heart muscle cells themselves. Stopping it requires medical intervention to quickly restore blood circulation,” explains cardiologist Dr Higgins.
- You must immediately call emergency services on 15 or 112 (or 114 for deaf or hard of hearing people). It is strongly recommended not to go to the Emergency Department yourself.
Every year in France, there are around 100,000 myocardial infarctions including 12,000 deaths, according to the latest support data of Health Insurance. “Myocardial infarction is defined as the necrosis of a more or less large part of the heart muscle, when this area is no longer irrigated by the coronary arteries normally supplying it with the oxygen carried by the blood.”, details the French Federation of Cardiology. Once it starts, a heart attack is a bit like a moving train: there’s no way to stop it in its tracks. To increase the chances of survival and recovery of an affected person, we must react very quickly and effectively.
Heart attack: the more time passes, the more the heart muscle is damaged
“Once a heart attack begins, the heart muscle begins to die due to lack of oxygen in the heart cells themselvesexplains cardiologist Dr Higgins in a prevention article. Stopping it requires medical intervention to quickly restore blood circulation.” Without this prompt restoration of blood circulation within the heart, permanent damage occurs, which can lead to death.
What to do in case of a heart attack?
If you think you are having a myocardial infarction, or witness one, you must immediately call help on 15 or 112 (or 114 for deaf or hard of hearing people). At the end of the line, a SAMU doctor will ask you questions to establish the urgency of the situation. It is not recommended to drive directly to the Emergency Department.
Heart: how to recognize the signs of a heart attack?
Usually, when the heart attack begins, the person feels a sharp pain in the chest. “It is generally a very intense pain located right in the middle of the thorax (behind the sternum), producing an agonizing sensation of tightness, of oppression initially evolving in waves or, immediately, brutally.”, explains the French Federation of Cardiology. This pain lasts for at least 20 minutes and can radiate to the throat, jaws, shoulder, arms, and sometimes the wrists. These symptoms may include intense fatigue, sweating, paleness, shortness of breath, palpitations, malaise, a feeling of imminent death, or even digestive signs (nausea and vomiting). “The symptoms vary depending on the individual and are often atypical in women in whom respiratory and digestive symptoms are frequently at the forefront.“Loss of consciousness or cardiac and respiratory arrest can occur within the first minutes:”it is sudden death by ventricular fibrillation which can be recovered by application in extreme emergency of an external electric shock using an automatic defibrillator as found in many public spaces”.