Cardiac arrests and heart attacks

Sir, – A common misunderstanding is exemplified by the mismatch between the headline “Urban heart attack survival rates 40 per cent better than rural” and the article that follows it, which largely deals with outcomes from cardiac arrest (News, May 1st).

Lest sufferers or their relatives be subject to undue anxiety, most people survive what is usually called a “heart attack”, wherein the blood supply to some portion of heart muscle is blocked causing cell death in the affected area. Most such victims arrive at hospital anxious, with chest pain and a deep certainty that something has gone badly wrong, but clearly conscious. The vast majority survive and resume active life afterward.

The most severe heart attacks cause the entire organ to literally stop beating, and so constitute one cause of cardiac arrest. Other causes can include trauma to the chest, electric shocks or overdoses. An individual so affected is by one definition dead, that is they lack circulation of the blood.

Efforts to reverse this involving chest compressions and defibrillation, thus resuscitating the patient, give the survival figures quoted in the article – about 1 per cent without defibrillation, but many times higher if skilled, but not necessarily expert, treatment is provided by those nearby.

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It is interesting to consider how many lives might be saved if all school children were taught to swim and to manage defibrillation, which should probably be seen as essential life skills. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN O’BRIEN,

Kinsale,

Co Cork.