"Sudden cardiac arrest" implies no warning, but the research says otherwise.
A study from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, published in The Lancet Digital Health, found that half the people who suffered a sudden cardiac arrest had felt a warning symptom in the 24 hours beforehand.
Which symptom depended on who had it. Among men, chest pain was the most common. Among women, it was shortness of breath. Smaller groups in both reported heavy sweating or seizure-like activity. Lead author Dr. Sumeet Chugh has said the result surprised his own team, which had long assumed there was never any time to act.
Cardiac arrest is not a heart attack, though the terms get swapped constantly. A heart attack is a blockage that starves heart muscle of blood. Cardiac arrest is the heart's electrical system failing, and the heart stops. A heart attack can trigger a cardiac arrest, which is why anyone recovering from a heart attack is told to take new symptoms seriously.
None of this makes a symptom proof of anything. Chest pain and breathlessness have dozens of ordinary explanations, and most turn out to be something else entirely.
Earlier work from Cedars-Sinai researchers found that among people who did get a warning, only about one in five called 911. Those who called survived at 32 percent. Those who didn't, 6 percent. Of everything in that sequence, the phone call is the most important part.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
