January 21, 2009
Every February, cards and gifts are exchanged between loved ones in the name of St. Valentine. The symbol for Valentine’s Day is the heart.
Unlike the heart you will see on your Valentine’s Day card this month, the human heart is shaped more like a cone. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. That is why it is important to reduce risk factors, know the warning signs, and train crew how to respond quickly and properly if warning signs occur.
The heart is a muscle that works like a pump and sits right between your lungs. The average adult heart weighs about 10 ounces (280 grams) and it pumps about 1,900 gallons (7,200 liters) of blood every day.
Think of the heart like a freight train: Lungs provide oxygen to the blood and the heart pumps the oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. After the blood has delivered its oxygen, it returns to the heart and gets pumped back to the lungs for more oxygen.
What can cause a heart attack? Some causes are preventable and are linked to diet and lifestyle. Other causes are due to genetics, infections, or factors beyond our control.
About 2,500 people die from heart disease each day in the United States. Some of the major risk factors are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, smoking, and a sedentary lifestyle. Stress is also believed to raise the risk. Possible triggers can be exertion or excitement.
So, you have a guest on board, clutching his chest. Is it a heart attack?
Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back. The discomfort may feel like pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain.
The person may also experience discomfort in one or both arms, their back, or their neck, jaw or stomach. Shortness of breath is often associated with the chest discomfort, however it may occur first. Other symptoms include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or light-headedness.
It looks like a heart attack. Now what?
The first thing you must do is radio for help. When a heart attack strikes, time is critical. The longer it takes the victim to get to the hospital, the greater the amount of damage that will occur to the heart muscle. Doctors only have a few hours to restore the blood supply to the heart muscle by unblocking the affected heart artery. Treatments such as the administration of clot-busting drugs to dissolve the clot must be done in a hospital.
Until you get the victim to the hospital, help him/her to a comfortable resting position. If the victim is alert, is able to swallow and is not allergic to aspirin, give one adult aspirin or 2-4 chewable children’s aspirin. If the person has prescribed medication such as nitroglycerin, help them take some. Medical oxygen can also be helpful to most people having a heart attack.
What if their heart stops and they stop breathing?
That’s cardiac arrest. This is where knowing CPR is important. Unlike the typical heart attack where the person can speak, a victim in cardiac arrest is essentially dead. Cardiac arrest has various causes including heart attack, choking, drowning, and electrocution.
Treat cardiac arrest by first sending someone to get medical help and to bring you the Automated External Defibrillator or AED. Meanwhile, you begin CPR.
Pressing on the middle of the victim’s chest between the nipples at a rate of 100 compressions per minute will force the heart to move blood and oxygen to the body. Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation will buy time until you can shock the victim with the AED and get him/her to a hospital.
Here’s some heart trivia for Valentine’s Day:
l A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s.
l Your heart is the size of your fist.
l Three years after a person quits smoking, their chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked.
l The human heart can create enough pressure that it could squirt blood 30 feet.
l The right lung is larger than the left because of the placement of the heart.
l In one day, your heart beats 100,000 times.
l Most heart attacks occur between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m.
l People who suffer from gum disease are twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack.
Keith Murray, a former Florida firefighter EMT, is the owner of The CPR School, a mobile training company that provides CPR, AED and first aid training. He also sells and services AEDs. Contact him at +1-561-762-0500 or keith@theCPRschool.com . Comments on this column are welcome at editorial@the-triton.com .
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