Five minute medic: Heart
Post categories: five minute medic,Ìýhealth
| 19:30 UK time, Monday, 28 September 2009
Every year in the UK 250,000 people suffer a heart attack, with 50% of them dying from it.
It's essential to act quickly if you suspect someone has had a heart attack and in particular, the actions you take the first hour following an attack can literally decide if the patient lives or dies.
If you were faced with the situation would you know what to do?
Watch the video clip from the show
In our film John Evans had spent the morning digging his garden. He found himself out of breath and experiencing a pain in his chest which he put down to indigestion.
He also began to feel nauseous, sweaty and had pain in his neck and jaw. Classic symptoms of a heart attack.
We took John out onto the streets of Bangor to see whether the public knew how they should best be helping him.
As usual the results varied with people thinking he had suffered a stroke, had a severe hangover and, in one case, a fractured arm!
Many people did diagnose him correctly but what's the correct procedure when you suspect someone has had a heart attack.
We spoke to coronary nurse Paul Richards from Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor.
He said it's important to know what symptoms you're looking for. They'll most likely include cold clammy skin, a pale face, crushing pain in the centre of the chest that can also occur in the arm and up into the jaw.
He stressed that some people only experience one of these symptoms whilst others experience them all.
His main advice was - if you suspect someone has had a heart attack - call 999 immediately.
Other top tips included:
- Sit the person down, preferably with their knees drawn up. This diverts blood away from the legs and to the central area of the body which will help the heart have to do less work.
- If the casualty is conscious then give them an aspirin to chew. Chewing the tablet will mean it's absorbed into the body quicker than just swallowing it whole. It won't taste very nice but it will ensure that the aspirin gets to work as quickly as possible by helping to keep the blood thin.
- Under no circumstances allow the patient to smoke a cigarette. They may feel that this will relax them (and apparently it's quite common for people to do this!) but smoking will reduce the amount of oxygen in the blood and this will cause your heart to work even harder - when you really should be resting it!
- Half of all casualties make a recovery from a heart attack with a proportion of those making a full recovery with no side effects.
- If in doubt call 999 and get the patient checked out. You really could be saving their life.
