Claim: Doctors generally recommend that one attempt to rhythmically cough during a heart attack to increase the chance of surviving it.
Status:False.
Example:[Collected via e-mail, 1999]
This one is serious . . . Let's say it's 4:17 p.m. and you're driving home, (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job. Not only was the work load extraordinarily heavy, you also had a disagreement with your boss, and no matter how hard you tried he just wouldn't see your side of the situation. You're really upset and the more you think about it the more up tight you become.
All of a sudden you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home, unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.
What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself.
HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE
Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed in order. Without help the person whose heart stops beating properly 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 phone and, between breaths, call for help.
Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives!
From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240's newsletter. AND THE BEAT GOES ON... (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)
Origins: This helpful e-mail began its life on the Internet in June 1999, and in the spring of 2004 a Powerpoint presentation of it began circulating online. Those kindhearted souls who started it on its way likely had no inkling the advice they were forwarding could potentially be harmful to someone undergoing a heart attack, but that is indeed the
