First Aid for a Person having Heart Attack
A heart attack also known as Myocardial Infarction (MI) is a condition of the heart that occurs when there is a loss of blood supply to the muscles of a part of the heart. This mostly results as a result of blockage of the coronary vessels by Atherosclerotic plaques (from cholesterol and fats). It is a form of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD).
It is different from Cardiac arrest, which happens when the heart stops working entirely.
Proper first aid for a heart attack could be the difference between life and death for such a person in this situation.
Remember that the heart is the pumping mechanism of the body. When this happens, the heart fails to pump blood, and then other organs start to die slowly. Click here to read more about cardiac arrest.
In this post, we are going to discuss what to do when a person has a heart attack.
First Aid For Heart Attack
What to do in this condition varies, and it depends on the state of the person, if conscious or unconscious. They are as follows;
IF CONSCIOUS
- Sit them down calmly to rest
- Unbutton any tight clothing
- Ask if they take any chest pain drugs like Nitroglycerin or Aspirin for their heart disease
- Help them take the drugs fast (if none, move to No. 5)
Rush to hospital. Especially if;
- chest pain does not go away promptly with rest or within 3 minutes of taking nitroglycerin or aspirin.
- the person was not previously on any heart drugs, or
- there are no medications to give to them within the 3 minutes
IF UNCONSCIOUS
- Call your local medical emergency number
- Start Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, CPR, with chest compression and rescue breathes
- If a child is unconscious and unresponsive, perform 1 minute of CPR, then call your local emergency number or rush to the hospital.
If you still don’t know how to suspect a person is having a heart attack, kindly click here to read this.
Everyone needs to know this first aid treatment to be able to help a person dying from a heart attack before medical help arrives!
