Let’s say it’s 6.15pm and you’re going home (alone of course),
…after an unusually hard day on the job. 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 (8kms) from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself…!!
NOW HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE…
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 by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously.A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and 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. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.
many drivers succumb to heart attacks and I thought this might be something to think about Simple but effective
I dont know if this will work but must be worth a try .
Guys the best way to survive a heart attack is to pull over as soon as it’s safe to do so. dial 999 and request an ambulance. The government target for an ambulance reaching somene with chest pains/heart attack is 8 minutes.
The next best thing is (and yes i know this isn’t easy or indeed practicle) is regular exercise. Try not to smoke or over eat again not easy. but prevention is gonna be much easier than cure. How do I know? I drove trucks for 6 yrs before getting my head back in the books. I work as a paramedic now but also do agency driving to keep my lgv skills current. I cant do death and distruction for too much longer. Truckings much better in the long run (much less stressful) pay’s not actually that different believe it or not.
Thump this rhythm out in your own chest on top on the heart quite strongly (like a hearty slap on the back might be) the moment you feel your heart missing beats, and your arm feels like you’ve just plugged yourself into the mains.
There’s no point calling for someone else if you’re going to be heart-stopped within 60 seconds, and brain dead within 5 minutes.
CPR begins with yourself. I’m deadly serious! Sort your irregular heartbeat out first, THEN call for help once the period of ‘feeling pasty’ turns into one of feeling rather tired.
The pasty feeling, the poke up the arm, and the chest discomfort (more discomfort than pain when your heart is missing beats left, right, and centre) are all warnings that a heart attack is imminent.
f you bugger about fumbling with the mobile, or running around trying to find someone without helping yourself first as suggested, the paramedics that might turn up 10 minutes later will only find you dead, and too far gone to revive. Once ‘the feeling’ starts, the first 30 seconds should be spent pulling up (yes, in the middle of the road if need be) and the “last” 30 seconds, practically king-konging your chest in the rhythm I’ve attached a clip of to demonstrate. Older folk will actually be able to hum this tune in their head, so playback of it shouldn’t be necassary come the sitation.
quirky:- old chap having suffered one myself back in 2009 im affraid old bean your talking complete and utter b#ll@#%s what you have been told or seen on you tube is again b#ll@#%s please when your around the berkshire area next time please get in touch with me and i will personaly take you on a visit around the royal berks hospital cardiolagy unit where you can meet my surgeon and all the other fab nurse’s or please check out the british heart foundation web site enough said
what a load of crap some talk about, Having been a responder most people are either out for the count, panicking or in pain have never heard of self CPR and don’t think you could get the compressions on your own chest to be effective. Best to stop call 999 if you can or hope someone see you in trouble.
What a load of sanctimonious ■■■ holes on here lately,
I said I dont know if it works but it might be worth a try
thats all .
Seems a lot on here are a specialist at everything and
take every opportunity to have a go and be the big I AM and
the rest of you are tossers .
If one day you are unlucky enough to have a heart attact
when there is no one about , just lie down and die , dont
bother to try anything but remember its crap .
Happy new year all , wont bother posting again and before
one of you know it all says it I wont be missed and I will
let the door hit me in the arse as I go out .
It’s a sad day when some one asks a question on something so serious and gets such a positive response. Yes some of the info was questionable, but the fact that so many replies were posted means people do actually give a s**t.
Best of luck to you quirky. ( I Guess you won’t be reading any further postings then).
urban859:
what a load of crap some talk about, Having been a responder most people are either out for the count, panicking or in pain have never heard of self CPR and don’t think you could get the compressions on your own chest to be effective. Best to stop call 999 if you can or hope someone see you in trouble.
Alright, I’m not a doctor, so maybe I gave it the wrong term. I was trying to express something in my own words from my own survival experience in 2005.
You try and say something helpful, and you just get slagged off all the time. I can’t be surprised quirky is taking such a line vs the responses on this thread, because I would argue the rest are giving a very serious subject a bad name here, and expressing a “bury head in sand” attitude to something that should be taken very seriously indeed.
flapper:
quirky:- old chap having suffered one myself back in 2009 im affraid old bean your talking complete and utter b#ll@#%s what you have been told or seen on you tube is again b#ll@#%s please when your around the berkshire area next time please get in touch with me and i will personaly take you on a visit around the royal berks hospital cardiolagy unit where you can meet my surgeon and all the other fab nurse’s or please check out the british heart foundation web site enough said
best post so far . same offer stands from me if your around the stoke area
I’d be willing to try anything, however, first thing to do in any life threatening situation is get help, whether that is from a member of public and/or 999, if no-one knows about it they can’t help you! It’s no good being a hero and getting over to the hard shoulder in those vital first few seconds and coughing your heart out, only to realise it’s not working and that you now can’t reach your phone, your only hope now, is that a HATO carrying jump leads will pass by in the very near future.
In all seriousness this goes for any of the emergency services, anyone remember the Oasis type place on the IOM that went up in smoke in 1973, the first call to the fire brigade came from a ship on it’s way into Liverpool.
Personally if I have a dodgy arm, heavy chest and a feeling of impending doom, the last place I would want to be is on the h/s with everyone whizzing passed at 56+ without a care, this is one time I’d want to be a drama queen and safely park it in a live lane.
oh dear quirky old chap " pram + dummy " throw out off comes to mind, read my post i did have a heart attack feb 2009 and i already know im a ■■■■■■ thanks but my offer to you still stands for a guided tour ( facts ) first fella a heart attack is a life changing experience if you survive it also tears people appart when someone dos’nt im still around and would love to be fit and heathy " just like you " and not take tablets for the rest of my time. so please be an adult and retract your remarks there’s a lot of good people on here
Quirky offered an alternative to something thats not already known, so it would do no harm to give it a try, as what he said does ring true…very true…most heart attack victims are often on their own:
My alternative to follow is this : phone a local radio station and ask them to play staying alive by the bee gees, then thump your own chest to the beat, if it hurts, then stop, if you cant feel it…your dead…BYeeeee…
No he did not. He copied and pasted some mumbo jumbo from the internet.
If anybody wants some good advise there are plenty of sites to go for information. Start at the British Heart Foundation, bhf.org.uk , and go from there.
If you have the slightest cause for concern, pull over. Dial 999 and let the people who deal with these things day in, day out, help you.
Your biggest chance of survival is trained medics getting to you asap. They have the skills, equipment and the resources to get you to the correct hospital (the best might not be the nearest. Read about Fabrice Muamba’s critical moments here bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17469449 )
Sent from my PC with thanks to East Of England Ambulance Service, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kings Lynn and Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire. 6th July 2011.
And yes, I was on my own. Another ‘■■■■■■’ 120 miles from home.
what you have been told or seen on you tube is again b#ll@#%s 
or please check out the british heart foundation web site 
enough said 
" pram + dummy " throw out off comes to mind, read my post i did have a heart attack feb 2009 and i already know im a ■■■■■■ thanks 
but my offer to you still stands for a guided tour ( facts ) first fella